Dueling Harmonies
by A True Radical Dreamer
Summary: What happens when you mix one part angry crippled ex-Sound ninja and one hyperactive idiot? Dueling Harmonies, that's what! Tayuya is brought back to the village and has to fit in, all the while trying to avoid thinking about all that she's lost. Dead.
1. Do

Ok, I came up with this idea half way though the new chapter of Sounding in the Dark so I decided to write a little test. If this gets good reviews/hits I'll continue, if not I'll drop it. It's that simple, folks. Read, review, and enjoy!

Warning: Tayuya curses more than a sailor in this fic. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, Tayuya, cursing in general, flutes, or band camp.

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**Chapter One: "Do****"**

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"Damn, that's the Kyuubi's chakra!" Kakashi hissed as he followed Pakkun

through the thick forests of Fire Country. He had been tracking Naruto and Sasuke for several hours while edging ever closer to the boarder with Otogakure, the ominous 'Valley of The End.'

"What do you think is going on up there?" Kakashi was broke out of his thoughts by Pakkun's question. The copy-nin winced as he felt another surge of demonic chakra erupt from beyond his field of vision. The situation was becoming more and more desperate in his mind as the sky itself seemed to weep at the evil presence both nin and dog felt.

Kakashi shook his head causing water to fly off his silver hair. "I don't really know." he answered. "That is defiantly the Kyuubi no Kitsune, though. I'll remember that chakra for the rest of my life."

The small pug nodded in understanding. Although he himself wasn't present for the fight against the Yokai, he wasn't a combat type after all, he still knew of the amount of damage the fox caused as he had helped afterwards by sniffing out survivors in the torched forest that served as the battleground.

The rain pounded on the pair as they ran though the forest. Pakkun let out a small yelp that drew Kakashi's attention. "There is another chakra source with the Kyuubi that's almost as large. It's...pure evil." the small pug said as he picked-up the pace. Now that they were closer, Kakashi began to feel the presence of the second chakra source. All at once both chakra sources erupted in a spike of pure force.

"I can't believe the power I'm feeling. The Kyuubi is boosting Naruto's level up to high Chuunin-level at least and Sasuke is low Jounin with the cursed seal, he's never had that much power before." Kakashi stated as the pair broke the tree line. The pair landed on of two statues that framed the valley; the statues of Uchiha Madara and the Shodaime Hokage.

The last blast of raw power was enough to send chills down Kakashi's spine and he frantically looked for either of his two students. Pakkun ran over to the edge of the Shodaime statue's head and looked down at the river below. The small dog could just barely see two figures though the breaking rain. The sun coming out helped a little and he noticed that one figure moved off while leaving the other where it laid.

"Kakashi! There's someone down there!" The Jounin instantly appeared beside the small pug in a cloud of smoke and leaned over the side of the statue. He could see a speck of orange by the valley's waterfall. Kakashi took no note of the rain as it started again. The Jounin quickly made his way down the rock wall and to his students side. A part of Naruto's trademark orange jumpsuit was burnt through but surprisingly the skin that showed through it was untouched. A hitai-ate that was scratched though was laying by the unconscious boy.

Pakkun took a sniff of it before turning to Kakashi. "Sasuke."

The one-eyed Jounin took a deep breath and sighed. "I wonder...why didn't I see this coming?" Kakashi asked himself. The Jounin placed Sasuke's hitai-ate on the blonde's chest before scooping him up. The little pug sighed as he looked up at the twin statues.

"Ironic that they would have their fight here, isn't it?" Pakkun asked.

Kakashi followed the dog's gaze and nodded. "Uchiha Madara fought his closest friend here and the battle carved the river. The fight shook Konoha to its foundation...I only hope Naruto will be spared of that, he's suffered enough."

The small dog could only nod. "We have time to musing later, right now we should get Naruto to the hospital."

Kakashi cast one last look over his shoulder at the opposite wall of the valley; the boarder of the Land of Sound. "...Hai."

_**--------------**_

A few kilometers away from the destruction at the Valley of the End, a medic squad was scouring the area for the survivors of the rescue party. Hyuuga Neji, Akimichi Choji, and Inuzuka Kiba had already been removed from the combat area and taken to the hospital for immediate treatment. Nara Shikamaru and Temari of the Sand had followed most of the team back to Konoha, only two medics were left to find Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. The pair were traveling towards the boarder with Oto when they stumbled across a section of forest that was completely destroyed. It confused the two medics since there was a large swath of land that was cut low in the form of a fan.

"Ok...this is big." the medic known as Byouin understated in awe. His partner, Enjintou, nodded dumbly as he stared at the destruction. The Suna-nin Temari had fought a battle here, he remembered.

Byouin shook off his awe; this was no time to gawk since there might be lives at stake. "I'll do a chakra scan! Stand behind me so you don't screw with the results." Enjintou nodded and quickly made his way behind his partner. Byouin ran though several hand seals after he took a soldier pill, the amount of chakra it would take to scan an area like this was considerable.

"**_Chakra Sukyan no Jutsu!" _**A wave of chakra formed around the medic and swept the decimated forest. A bead of sweat ran down the stressed medic's face but he kept the jutsu in tact as the chakra pulse traveled over the entire width of the clearing. Enjintou focused his senses to catch any indication of a chakra ping. The jutsu was a search skill used to find victims of natural disasters trapped in rubble by bouncing a pulse of chakra off their bodies.

Byouin sighed; there was one small feedback from the middle of the field. It was fading but it was there. He turned to his partner who nodded in agreement to the unvoiced order. The medics sprinted towards the weak chakra

_**--------------**_

She could feel the sun on her eyes but couldn't find the strength to open them. It was odd, she thought, that she was content with her situation. She should be upset, furious, that she had lost in such a way but for some reason she wasn't bothered by it. She was all to content to lay here and accept whatever came after life and she was do it with a sneer on her lips. Of course, it didn't stop her from grumbling about the **_way _**she died; who used a sickle-wielding weasel, anyway? It was so stupid, she thought.

"_I've never seen her before, have you?"_

There were voices that interrupted her last inner-monolog. It was her lot in life, she supposed. She had to deal with annoying pricks like Sakon and Jiroubou when she was alive and kicking so why not be bothered after as she died? If she had the ability she would have laughed at her fate.

"_It doesn't matter who she is, she's still alive and we're going to treat her!"_

Treat her? There was nothing anyone could do. In fact, it would be better if she died, she thought. If she was taken back to Oto she would be killed by Kimimaro for not completing her mission. It would be better if she died now as the Kaguya survivor for not killing the two shits she was fighting. Of course, she would love to see how that prick would deal with a flying weasel that could level a forest. Bastard would probably piss his robes.

"_So, will she make it back to the village?"_

Village? What village? So...they were going to take her back to Oto; Kabuto was going to have a conniption when he sees the state she's in.

"_...no, she has internal damage and her legs are crushed. I have to heal some of this now."_

Suddenly, she felt the calming touch of a medical jutsu. Some of the binding pain she felt in her lower back disappeared as well as the feeling of blood in her lungs.

"_That's all I can do out here, help me get that tree off of her legs so we can get her to the hospital." _

Oh, there was a tree on her legs. That would explain why she couldn't feel them at the moment. Finally, she had enough strength to cough up some blood and clear her throat. It didn't make any sense that they were helping her only to kill her when they were back in Oto, perhaps Orochimaru wanted to use her as one of his test subjects? If she could, she would have shivered at that possibility.

The sound of something large hitting the forest floor alerted her that the medics were done with the tree. She still couldn't feel her legs but the pressure on her stomach was gone. The sense of weightlessness let her know that someone had picked her up. This was more than she could stand and she let her discomfort show.

"I'm...n-not...a f-fucking...p-piece of l-luggage...bastard..."

The two medics looked at the redhead they were carrying back to Konoha. It was amazing that she was even conscious considering the state she was in. Of course, being insulted by someone half their age pushed the medical oath to the limit of their patience...

_**--------------**_

"So the demon brat survived as well?" one of the orderlies asked as she rolled her supply tray though the Konoha hospital.

Her companion snorted in obvious disgust. "Out of all the Genins that went to rescue the Uchiha he was the one with the least injures! I bet he sabotaged the entire mission." the old woman hissed. They abruptly shut-up when they saw Shizune stalking down the halls; it was common knowledge that the young medic had a soft spot for the blonde monster.

"Are you two on your way to check on Uzumaki Naruto? It's time to change his bandages." the short-haired woman asked. The two nurses struggled to keep their fake smiles as they nodded. That seemed to be enough for Shizune as she returned the smile and went about her business.

"I don't believe this! Not only do we have to work overtime because the demon wrecked his mission now we have to actually take care of it?"

The other nurse was about to voice her opinion when two field medics walked though the main door to the hospital carrying a heavily-injured redheaded girl. "We need Hokage-sama!"

Shizune ran over to the pair and called for a gurney. "We need to get her to the seal room! Someone get Tsunade-sama and tell her what room we're in; we have to move!" Shizune helped the medics put the girl on the gurney and quickly wheeled her towards one of the back rooms designated for large-scale medical jutsu. Hyuuga Neji had already been moved to a private room after his injuries where taken care of and the room was free so the field medics set the wounded girl down in the center of the seal array. A few moments after Shizune had started the medical scanner, a busty blonde roughly pushed her way though the swinging doors.

"Shizune! What's the condition of the patent?" Tsunade asked as she walked over to the small monitor off to the side. Her brows furrowed as she looked the young girl over. For starters, she had never seen the girl before but what raised instant alarms was that she was wearing clothes similar to what Orochimaru was wearing the last time she saw him.

Shizune snapped her head up from the medical monitor to answer the Hokage. "She has internal damage and her legs are crushed. The medics said they found her half-underneath a tree! It's a miracle that she's even alive."

Tsunade frowned as she looked over Shizune's shoulder. The girl's muscles were torn and crushed all along her legs; it was doubtful that she would ever walk again.

"All right..." Tsunade shook off her worries about the redhead's loyalties for the moment and walked over to the girl. "...first we fix the eternal damage. Her colon, stomach, liver, and intestines are going to need major work." Tsunade turned towards her assistant and noted that she was still drained from the operation on Neji. "Shizune, you take over my patents for now. Akimichi Choji is stable so I'm done with him. Make sure you apply the drugs I've fixed every hour on him, ok?"

Shizune silently thanked the older woman, she was whipped-out from tending to the others.

The woman was about to leave the room when Tsunade called out for her to wait a moment. "Call ANBU and have them place a guard on this room and summon Mitarashi Anko."

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Shizune chirped. The young medic watched her mentor charge the seal array as she went about her business while wondering why Tsunade would need ANBU...

_**--------------**_

Mitarashi Anko was not a happy woman by any stretch of the imagination. Her best friend, Yuhi Kurenai, could attest to this. At her best, she was only slightly-psychotic; at her worst...

"Alright, why the hell did you call me here, Tsunade-sama?" Anko demanded as she stomped up to the blonde Hokage.

Tsunade took a deep breath and tried not to let the insubordination get to her; Anko was too much like Naruto in her book. The Sannin motioned for Anko to enter the large seal room where her latest patent was being lifted onto a gurney.

"I need to take a look at your cursed seal, Anko-san." Tsunade said, getting straight to the point.

Anko narrowed her eyes and her hand unconsciously moved scratch the crook of her neck. "Why? And what are ANBU doing here?"

Tsunade held out her hand to stop the medic that was about to roll the young girl out of the room. Anko walked over to the side of the gurney and winced in sympathy; the redhead was white as a sheet and had several cleaned cuts on her body; results of some horrible battle that she received the short end of the stick, no doubt.

"What the hell happened to her?" Anko asked.

"She was found by our field medics after the mission to locate Uchiha Sasuke failed. She doesn't have any identifying markings on her but she does have this..." Tsunade gently pulled back the girls hair to show Anko the three jagged tattoos on back of the redhead's neck accompanied by a circle of glowing runes.

The Special Jounin growled as she saw the cursed seal. "Orochimaru. She's from Hidden Sound?"

Tsunade nodded. "The only survivor from her unit, apparently. I need to know what the Third did to your seal so I can suppress hers."

"Is she dangerous?" Anko was slightly unnerved about having someone who was so close to Orochimaru anywhere in Konoha; especially if they had a cursed seal.

"No...her legs were completely crushed and it's unlikely she'll ever walk again. I could repair the bone damage but her muscles are torn and her chakra pathways are disrupted. I'm keeping an ANBU guard on her but I'm not worrying too much if we can suppress the seal." Tsunade replied as she waved-off the medics. "For now, though, I've used _Fuuja Houin _on it."

Anko watched the medics disappear around the corner with an ANBU guard following them and turned back to Tsunade. "I don't know the exact method Sandaime-sama used to keep mine in check. So far, it only activates when Orochimaru is around to screw with it." the Special Jounin said with a grimace.

Tsunade sighed; she should have expected that. "Well, consider yourself on leave until I get your seal figured out. The girl will be officially interrogated in a few days so maybe she'll know something about it. For the time being we can go over your medical file to see if Sandaime-sensei recorded his method. You're coming to suffer with me, of course." the woman ordered.

Anko reluctantly followed Tsunade towards the file room but couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the young Oto-nin. Ibiki was going to have a field day when she recovered...

_**--------------**_

"This girl is one of Orochimaru's brats?" one of the two nurses asked as they took charge of the gurney the redhead was resting on.

"Yup. Hokage-sama wants to put her up in a secure room until she's healed enough for interrogation." the other, younger nurse replied with distain lacing her voice.

The masked ANBU guard followed silently as the two nurses complained about the 'unfairness' of it all. He was inclined to agree with them since he was rather unhappy at having to guard an enemy-nin, even if she was incapacitated.

On their way past the nurse station, the older of the two nurses grabbed a clipboard and started to flip though it's pages.

"We don't have any singles available so we'll have to double-up another room." she said. The other nurse glared at the Oto-nin in contempt even though the girl was unconscious.

"She would be fine with that demo..." the older nurse spared a look at the ANBU silently watching and shuddered; even if the Third wasn't around his law still stood. "...Uzumaki boy."

The other nurse nodded her agreement and wheeled the unconscious Tayuya towards the decided room. The ANBU guard sighed under his mask; he really didn't want to mess with the Kyuubi brat on top of all this.

In his room, Naruto was sitting on his hospital bed wrapped like a mummy. In a word, the boy was sulking. He could hear echo's of his failed promise to Sakura when it was quiet, he could see her sobbing when he closed his eyes.

"Damn you, Sasuke..." The boy's grip on the sheets strengthened until his knuckles turned white. "You could have gotten power here! You had everything; a bloodline limit, respect, memories of a family, Sakura-chan..." Naruto's voice was starting to falter when the door to his room swung open. The blonde watched with narrow eyes as the old nurse glared at him. When the gurney was rolled in, he ignored the rude nurse in favor of seeing who his new roommate was. The girl, who looked to be a few years older than him, had long red hair and was wearing a hospital robe. As the two nurses lifted her onto the second bed in the room, he could see that both of her legs were in heavy casts. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought the girl looked familiar.

When he looked at her face he saw her cold eyes. It seemed she was awake but wasn't in the mood for conversation; he could understand that. When the two nurses finished settling her in, they glared one last time at the blonde boy before heading out the door. Naruto thought he saw an ANBU member out in the hall but the door closed before he could get a better look.

For several minutes Naruto just continued to sneak glances at the strange girl. _'She's kinda cute...' _he admitted to himself. The redhead finally sighed and whipped her head over to the side to glare at Naruto.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" the girl demanded. Naruto, embarrassed that he was caught staring, started sputtering incoherent excuses but was saved by the door opening yet again.

"Yo, Naruto." Shikamaru greeted in his usual lazy tone. He stopped mid-step once the second bed came into view as his jaw dropped.

Tayuya, upon hearing someone open the door, tossed one last glare at the blonde before turning-over in her bed to see who came in. When she saw the pineapple-haired Chuunin her eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"You bastard! I'll rip your throat out and beat you with your own spine!" Tayuya raved. Of course, not even being able to stand quickly made her threats academic but Shikamaru kept his distance none-the-less.

"What are you doing here? Such a troublesome woman..." the Chuunin mumbled as he regained his composure. He noted the rather large set of casts on Tayuya's legs and deduced that she was immobile for the moment which was good since Temari wasn't around to hide behind.

For his part, Naruto watched the interactions with interest. When he saw the girl go off on Shikamaru, the identity of the girl clicked in his mind and he quickly turned white as a sheet. "You! You're the crazy girl that helped kidnapped Sasuke!" he yelled in mortification. He was suddenly disgusted at having ever thought the foul-mouthed Oto-nin was 'cute' in any way, shape, or form.

With a new target to lambaste, Tayuya rolled her head over to glare at the blonde. "Don't mention that damned name again! Do you know the hell I've had to go though just to get that prick? I can't even fucking walk now because of that mission!" she raved. Naruto cringed under the verbal lashing and felt his resolve waning; he couldn't attack someone that was injured.

"What do you mean you can't walk? You did see Hokage-sama, didn't you?" Shikamaru asked. He was certain the girl did see the Slug Sannin since only the Hokage could have cured the wounds Temari's summon gave her.

Tayuya's teeth started to grind as she continued to glare at the blonde. With a huff, she rolled over to her other side and proceeded to ignore the two Konoha-nin.

"Uh...alright, whatever. So troublesome..." Shikamaru grumbled as he sat at the foot of Naruto's bed. Naruto frowned one last time at the back of the redhead before turning his attention to Shikamaru who was asking about Sasuke. Naruto relayed the events of his fight at the Valley of the End and his failure.

Naruto heard something akin to faint laughter coming from the redhead's bed but before he could yell at her the door opened again. Tsunade and Sakura walked into the room with the former softly smiling and the latter looking apprehensive. Tayuya inclined her head to see who it was before snorting loudly and going back to her original position.

"I see the little princess is up and about." Tsunade taunted. The Oto-nin growled and shifted in her bed.

"You old hag! Did you drag your half-dead carcass down here just taunt me or something? Must be how you get your kicks in your old age; eh, granny?" Tayuya shot back with all the venom she could muster. The room suddenly dropped in temperature by several degrees as Tsunade and Tayuya had an impromptu glaring match. Of course, the deadly atmosphere was ruined when Naruto doubled-over with laughter.

Sakura and Shikamaru looked at the boy as if he had grown another head. Naruto only stopped when Tsunade cracked a clipboard over his head.

"Damn kid, he thinks that's so funny, huh?" Tsunade mumbled under her breath as she checked Naruto's chart. Sakura shifted from one foot to another before catching Naruto's eye. The blonde visibly wilted from the eye contact which made Sakura feel that much worse.

"Sakura-chan, I promise I'll get Sasuke back for you! It's the promise of a lifetime!" Naruto loudly declared. If one was listening closely, they would be able to pick-up the slight desperation hidden within his tone. Shikamaru and Tsunade smiled fondly at the boy's behavior while Tayuya actually stayed quiet for a change. Sakura side-stepped his promise and walked over to the room's window to open it.

"It's a nice day out, Naruto." Sakura commented as she stared out at the hospital's courtyard.

Shikamaru bristled at the girl's attitude but his words were cut-off by Naruto. "I promise, Sakura-chan! I'll drag him back here if I have to, it's my promise of a lifetime!"

Sakura stared at him for a moment. A ghost of a smile was on her lips as she walked towards the door. Naruto thought she was just going to leave but she turned her head before she walked out.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. Next time...we'll get him together." with that, the kunoichi disappeared from the room. Naruto, stunned at first, began to smile along with Shikamaru and Tsunade.

Of course, their happy moment was ruined when Tayuya decided to jump into the conversation. "You are some sappy pricks, you know? You're teammate is a damned traitor and you still want trash like that to come back?" the redhead asked in her usual gruff voice.

"He's my teammate! Unlike you, I care about my friends!" Naruto refuted. Shikamaru groaned, an argument between two people like them was going to be annoying.

"Teammate? If sitting in a hospital wrapped-up like some damn leper is what teammates do to one another then maybe this village isn't different from Oto! What do you think will happen to the bastard even if you get him from Orochimaru? Do you really fucking believe everything will be right with the world? Wake up, prick." Tayuya hissed.

Before Naruto could even question what the girl meant by that, Tsunade stepped between the beds. "Alright you two, knock it off. I don't know what those idiot nurses were thinking in putting you two together but you both need rest so sit down, shut up, and sleep!" the Hokage bellowed. Tayuya mumbled a curse and twisted around so she was no longer facing her roommate while Naruto did the same.

Shikamaru, taking the Hokage's glare as a hint, stood up from the foot of Naruto's bed and yawned. "Well, I need to go visit Choji. Ino's probably annoying him to death." With that, the lazy Chuunin excused himself to leave the blonde Hokage to play babysitter.

"All right, I'm going to leave now and you two are going to keep it down. If I get any complaints from the other patients about any noise coming from this room I'll just keep you both in medical comatose while you're recovering." Tsunade warned. The Hokage then ruffled Naruto's hair, much to his displeasure, and left the two to their own devices. After all, she had left Anko alone in the records room...

For awhile, neither occupant said anything. The quiet was a nice alternative to arguing in Naruto's mind. Unfortunately, having no one to talk to reminded him of his childhood before Team Seven. Those days to him were a distant memory, or so he thought. The battle with Sasuke made the blonde face more of his past than he cared for and he slipped into brooding like he once did. Usually, his happy-go-lucky mask would distract him from such things but he couldn't take solace in it at the moment. It had been chipped away from the stress of first thinking Sasuke was abducted, then having to fight to catch up with him, then finding out he actually defected, and finally his fight at the Valley of the End.

"Hey, dumbass. Why are you so quiet all of a sudden? Don't tell me the queen bitch scared you that much." Tayuya taunted. Naruto snarled but found himself unable to get mad at her. There was a desperate longing in her voice that was hidden under the sarcastic edge; it was almost unperceivable but it was there. The only reason the blonde caught it was because he had used the same voice before back in the Academy. The boy actually smirked when he caught was it was that she was feeling.

"You're lonely, huh?" Naruto shot back.

Tayuya snorted. "Don't flatter yourself, fag. I just sleep better when I hear background noise. It's too fucking quiet in here."

Naruto chuckled at her response. "Whatever you say." Before she could fire some angry remark back, he spoke again. "So, what did you mean about everything not being better when I bring Sasuke back? I don't get it."

The redhead groaned and flipped over in her bed. She leveled a stare at him that clearly said, 'you are an idiot' before answering. "What the hell do you think I mean? Sasuke left this craphole of a village willingly, that makes him a traitor. What do you think happens to traitors? What do you think would happen if your hunter-nin caught his brother?"

Naruto's eyes went wide. "They wouldn't kill him! He's nothing like Itachi!" the boy defended while making sure to keep his volume down.

"If that's true, then explain to me why you're in a damn hospital? He put you hear, didn't he? He attacked an Shinobi of Konoha on an official mission; he's as good as dead when he gets back." Tayuya stopped for a moment and tilter her head in thought before adding, "Or maybe he'll be used as breeding stock. That Sharingan thing is rare so they might not kill him. He'll never be a ninja again, that's for sure."

Naruto's mind rebelled at that thought. Was his promise to Sakura to save Sasuke from death at the hands of Orochimaru only exchanging that fate for being killed by his own village? He mentally pushed that thought away; no, it would all workout in the end and his family would be back.

Naruto squinted his eyes in a fox-like manner and grinned at the girl with his answer in his mind. "It'll all work out! There's no way that--"

"Stop right fucking there." Tayuya rudely interrupted. "When you talk to me don't use that damned fake smile, that's the second time I'd seen that thing and it pisses me the hell off." she ordered.

"..." Naruto cringed under her stare. His eyes opened fully and he gave her an honest, if not a bit forced, lopsided smile. "Better?"

"You still look like a dumbass but at least you look like an honest dumbass." Tayuya eloquently informed him.

Naruto couldn't help it, he had to laugh at that. It wasn't his usual loud and annoying laugh, but an quiet chuckle. If anyone else had heard it they would have sworn that the blonde boy was actually someone else in a Henge due to the change in attitude.

"I'm glad we both agree you're an idiot." Tayuya said with a smirk. "You actually think that smile fooled people?" she asked with disbelief.

The blonde abruptly stopped laughing. Cold blue met dark brown as Naruto's gaze caught hers. Tayuya found herself a bit unnerved as he just sat and stared; it was as if he was looking for something.

"W-what the hell's your problem, prick? Stop fucking staring at me!" Tayuya demanded, breaking the gaze.

Naruto sighed and leaned back on his pillows with his hands behind his head. He let his eyes unfocus as he drudged up more memories. All the times he practically begged for attention back at the Academy, the pranks he would pull just to cover-up his own shortcomings, all of it. "...you're the first."

Tayuya's attention went back to the boy's voice, she was still getting over whatever the hell had bothered her about the blonde's eyes when he had said something. "What did you say?"

"You're question. You asked how many people fell for my smile." Naruto turned to again meet her eyes as he answered. Somehow, Tayuya couldn't avoid it and met it with her own stare. "You're the first person to see though it. No one, not even Kakashi-sensei, Ero-Sennin, Sakura-chan, Iruka-sensei, or Tsunade-bachan." he admitted.

"The ninja here must be idiots, then." Tayuya said in a huff, again breaking the eye contact. She mentally decided to not get caught in the boy's gaze again, he had some freaky power or something that unnerved her. "It looks like you're fucking constipated so don't do it around me, got it?" she demanded.

Naruto blinked at her. This time he smiled without it being forced. It was a calm, serine thing that not many people got to see. Upon seeing it, Tayuya muttered something about 'bastard blondes' and rolled over in her bed to hide, to her utter disgust, a growing smile of her own...

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Well, I really don't have much to add. Just read the stuff above the disclaimer if you missed it. Thanks for reading! 


	2. Re

People, I am a stunned man. 60+ reviews, that has got to be a record for a first chapter! Honestly, I wasn't expecting so many people to like Tayuya that much. Because of viewer response, I'm expanding the original storyline I had adopted for this fiction and making it several chapters longer. You know, I could blackmail the next chapter in order to get more reviews but I won't! Aren't I nice? This story will now continue regardless of reviews but don't slack-off! Anyway, enjoy the latest chapter in my quintessential Tayuya pairing fiction, Dueling Harmonies!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything else but the world does own me...how sad...

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**Chapter Two: "Re"**

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"So, that girl was present during the Sand-Sound invasion? Are you certain?" Tsunade asked once she finished reading one of the ANBU reports from when Orochimaru fought the Third.

The cat-masked man standing before Tsunade's desk inclined his head. "Yes, I saw it myself. She was one of the four that placed the barrier around Sandaime-sama during Orochimaru's attack."

The blonde Hokage sighed; she knew how the ANBU resented that. It was an extreme sore spot for the entire organization; many of the ANBU that had witnessed the fight were convinced that had they been able to intervene the Sandaime would still be alive. It seems that is also the reason behind the request this particular ANBU member made.

"I understand your position but I won't let arbitrary violence happen at a hospital. Rest assured, she will not get away with her crimes against Konoha. For now, your request is denied. The girl will be allowed to recover for the duration of the week before she will be handed over to Ibiki's interrogation unit. After that..." Tsunade let the sentence trail off.

The man understood and gave a brisk nod. "In that case, I will inform my subordinates of your decision, Hokage-sama. May I be dismissed?" Tsunade made a shooing motion with her hand as an answer.

Once the masked man was gone, Shizune shook her head. "What kind of person actually asks to be a child's executioner?" the young woman asked as she refilled Tsunade's teacup.

"You can't blame him or the rest of ANBU for wanting this, Shizune. They lost many of their comrades during the Sand-Sound invasion so they need to vent. That Oto-nin is the closest they can get to ringing Orochimaru's neck so they all feel justified for what they want." the Hokage explained.

"She's a scapegoat, you mean. A martyr of sorts?" Shizune bit back, her aggravation becoming more apparent.

Tsunade angrily turned to the woman, her eyes flashing in anger for a split-second. "Is that so wrong? I lost my teacher, my friend, because of that invasion! Shouldn't we be entitled to some semblance of revenge?" she snapped.

Shizune sighed before walking towards the office door. The Hokage was silent as her assistant walked out, but the young medic paused just before she was about to close the door.

"If that is the case, Tsunade-sama, why not take revenge on Naruto-kun for the crimes Kyuubi has done? I'm sure you lost someone you cared about back then as well, right?" the woman asked as the door closed with a click. Tsunade didn't shout back an answer because, the woman discovered, she did not have one...

_**/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/**_

Naruto yawned as he awoke. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. Clean sheets, nice room, everything was white...

"Am I dead?" he asked as his eyes focused.

"Unless you consider hell this trash heap of a village, which I do, then no." Tayuya gruffly replied, seemed she was an early riser.

Naruto, now awake, remembered the events of the past day and leaned back in his bed. He stole a glance at the grumpy redhead a bed over and smirked; time to have some fun. "Oh, I don't know. I think this has to be heaven since there are angels here." the boy joked with a wink.

That succeed in making Tayuya turn as red as her hair; for once, she didn't have a snide comeback. Deciding to ignore the comment completely, she changed the subject.

"How long do you usually sleep? I've been up for hours, lazy prick." she scolded. Her mood darkened when she moved to kick the thick blanket off of her body but was quickly reminded she couldn't move her legs. She scolded herself for forgetting something like that.

Naruto chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck; it wasn't his fault that his body didn't like to cooperate and wake-up. He was waiting for more verbal lashings from his roommate but was surprised that she let it drop. When he saw that Tayuya was looking at her wrapped legs, he instantly knew what was wrong. They had talked a bit after Tsunade had left the day before and he found out that the Oto-nin couldn't even feel her legs let alone move them.

"Are they any better today?" Naruto asked knowing Tayuya would know what he was talking about. The girl scowled as she glared at her legs. It was as if she were trying to intimidate them into moving.

"What the fuck do you think?" She snapped.

Naruto flinched at the tone but he reminded himself that he would never know what she was going though. Falling back on his classic Naruto personality, but making sure to forget the fake smile, he tried to cheer her up. "You know, I've seen people that don't even move become ninjas! It's not like you need really good maneuverability to be one."

Despite the good intentions, Tayuya spun around to face him with complete murder in her eyes. "What the fuck do you know! You don't know me, you don't know how much I've already sacrificed for power! My life is worthless now, bastard!" she shrieked. If the ANBU outside heard any of this he made no effort to break it up.

"I-I just meant that-!" Naruto tried to back peddle but the girl was already on the verbal assault.

"I don't want your fucking pity! Shut the hell up to me, trash!" with that, the redhead wrenched the cloth divider closed, effectively cutting her off from her roommate.

Naruto could hear her punching the bed with enough force to make it shake. He was about to get out of bed and try to explain what he meant whether she liked it or not when a not-so-polite cough alerted Naruto that he was not alone. The boy turned to the hospital window and saw the one person he didn't want to deal with at the moment.

"You sure have a way with the ladies, kid." Jiraiya joked from his perch. Naruto noticed a large cloud of dissipating smoke outside the window and deduced that the pervert had used a toad to get into the room; flashy old man.

"I don't have time for that right now, Ero-Sennin!" Naruto huffed.

Jiraiya smirked, he knew how to get his student's attention. "Oh, so you don't want to learn about the training trip I'm taking you on?" he baited.

"Not right now!" Naruto snapped as he gently pulled himself out of his bed. Jiraiya was too stunned to even yell at the boy for his mouth like he usually did.

Naruto carefully made his way over to the separator but didn't pull it back. The girl was being uncharacteristically quiet behind the divider so he took a chance that she would be willing to listen.

"Tayuya-san..." The boy shot a quick glance back at his teacher who was still watching with interest. Naruto knew how much Tayuya disliked the mask he put up and he had said he wouldn't do it around her...maybe the pervert would just think it was a fluke? Naruto set his mind and continued. "...I'm sorry if it sounded like pity. I was just saying that it's not the end of the world for you! From what I've seen you're really strong so you shouldn't let something like this stop you. I've been in worse situations than this before and I've gotten out of them!"

"I'm not you, bastard." was the weak reply Naruto got back. It lacked its usual venom so that meant she was still listening.

"I know you're not me because...you're better." When Tayuya didn't say anything back, he continued with a sigh. "All my life I've been looked down on, underestimated. All I've had to go on is my will alone. Hell, until a little while ago I was the worst ninja to ever graduate the academy; I couldn't even do Henge no Jutsu without screwing it up." Naruto laughed a bit, now completely forgetting the pervert sitting on the windowsill. "I was really bad at everything. The first jutsu I ever got right was a mistake! I was trying to do a Henge and I got distracted by a girl that called me a name. I was so focused on her that I henged into a girl version of myself! That was the birth of the 'Sexy no Jutsu' I'm so famous for."

Naruto could have sworn he heard muffled laughter from the other side of the screen. _'Time to go in for the kill...' _he thought.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can do whatever you want to do...since you're not a loser like me." he finished with a bit of acting. Hey, if it worked on a bastard like Neji it should work on her. When Tayuya didn't immediately answer, Naruto walked back over to his hospital bed. There was really nothing more he could say, it was up to Tayuya now. Upon seeing Jiraiya, Naruto cursed himself mentally; he had forgotten about the old pervert. Hiding behind his mask one again, Naruto hopped under the sheets and poked the old man in the foot.

"You said something about training, Ero-Sennin! Tell me, will it help me get Sasuke back?" Naruto asked, actually brightening at the thought. Before Jiraiya could answer, Naruto heard the curtain pull back. Tayuya didn't say anything but she did sneak glances at the two figures as she leafed though a magazine Shizune had left the day before.

Jiraiya cracked a smile and shook his head; even one of Orochimaru's brats couldn't resist Naruto's charm. Maybe he should write a new Icha Icha Paradise book based on the kid? Before the pervert could slip into writer-mode, Naruto impatiently punched his foot to get his attention.

"Oh, right, the training. Well, I've decided to make you my official apprentice and take you on a trip for a few years." he spared a look at the girl while he decided if he would share certain pieces of info. Well, she wouldn't be around long enough to tell anyone, he thought grimly. Turning back to Naruto, he continued. "You'll be fine for three or four years since Akatsuki seems to have no interest in you for at least that long." the Sannin made a note that the redhead flinched when Akatsuki was mentioned; it would be something to tell Tsunade.

"What about Sasuke?" Naruto asked impatiently.

Jiraiya tried to smile but it came out extremely forced. It was like looking at himself all those years ago. "Because his retainers screwed-up, Orochimaru had to do a soul transfer before Sasuke arrived." The old pervert ignored the snort that came from Tayuya at the words 'screwed up' and continued, "Because of that, Orochimaru can't transfer into Sasuke for another three years."

"So, Sasuke is safe for three years? Yes! There is plenty of time to save him, then! Let's start training so I can drag him back here, Ero-Sennin!" Naruto exclaimed.

The Sannin's expression darkened considerably at this and he pinned the blonde boy with a glare. "Naruto, I'm warning you right now." he drew closer to the boy as his eyes narrowed. "Do not go after Sasuke. He is lost to us and this village." the old man sighed as he backed off from Naruto; he was sure every year of his life was showing in his face by now. "The boy went to Orochimaru by his own free will, nothing was influencing him. Hell, if you don't believe me, ask the girl over there."

Naruto turned to Tayuya with something akin to desperation in his eyes. The redhead shifted uncomfortably under his gaze before reminding herself that she shouldn't give a shit about the blonde bastard's feelings. With that in mind, she steeled herself and drew her lips into a cocky smirk. "It's true. The mission Orochimaru sent us on was to simply offer the shit Uchiha a chance to get power. He took the bait; hook, line, and fuckin' obvious sinker. You see what he did to you when you caught-up to him, you're in the damned hospital wrapped-up like some mummy for Kami's sake!"

"It...doesn't matter. I made a promise to Sakura-chan to bring him back so I will! It doesn't matter if Ero-Sennin trains me or not, I'll find a way." Naruto said in an even voice. Tayuya, wearing an unreadable expression, shrugged and went back to reading her magazine.

Jiraiya actually had to reevaluate the kid sitting in front of him. Naruto's usual idiotic demeanor was gone and for the second time that day he had seen the boy act somewhat mature. What this actually meant was anyone's guess, though. It was definitely something the Sannin didn't want to delve to far into right now.

"I won't train you just so you'll die. Only a fool would chase after someone who doesn't want to be saved, kid. You won't be allowed to leave Konoha without ANBU escort and your missions will be cut, is that what you want?"

Naruto was about to say something about preferring to be a fool when he heard Tayuya snort. Both males turned to her as she laughed to herself, quickly annoying the Sannin.

"It's not good for you to be so amused since you were party to this entire problem." Jiraiya stated in a low, dangerous voice. That actually had the girl laughing harder. For his part, Naruto simply waited for Tayuya's fit to end, he knew enough about her that she would have something to saw after her sarcasm was finished.

"I can't believe you two shits!" she snorted between chuckles. "Listen to yourself, Oyaji-baka. You sound just like Orochimaru holding power over someone's head to get what they want, bastard." Tayuya said with a smirk.

The Sannin flinched as if he was physically hit. She was twisting things around to make it sound like that, she had to be. All he wanted was for the kid not to live like he did when Orochimaru left.

Before he could defend himself, Tayuya started again, this time to Naruto. "You just got done spewing all kinds of crap to me about being a good little ninja and here you are considering getting power from someone else. How are you better than the fucking Uchiha if you take his offer?" she spat.

Even though it was laced with curses and sarcasm, Naruto picked out what she meant. _'Don't take the easy road and compromise your ideals, be yourself and train harder so you don't rely on people.' _It was scary seeing himself in someone else; how many times had he traded insults with Sasuke just to get him to open up? How many times had he declared his dream to be Hokage just to give someone else courage?

"You know...you're right, Tayuya-san." Naruto flashed the girl a smile to which she rolled her eyes. Turning to Jiraiya, Naruto narrowed his eyes much like the old pervert had done moments ago. "I can train myself, Ero-Sannin. If you're right, I don't have to worry about those Akatsuki guys for a few years and I have three years to get strong enough to rescue Sasuke! You'll see, I'll do it myself!" Naruto said in a huff. He knew he was acting childish but he couldn't help it. He was tired of people underestimating him.

The Frog Hermit took a deep breath and let it out in a colossal sigh. If the boy didn't want to be trained there was nothing he could do about it. A few months without missions would make him come to his senses. "If that's the way you want it, Naruto. I'll be sure to inform Tsunade about this before I leave the village. Don't worry though, I'll be back to get you when you change your mind in a few months of no missions." the pervert taunted as he pushed-off of the windowsill. Mid-fall he disappeared in a swirl of leaves leaving Naruto to mumble under his breath about his tendency to be overly-dramatic.

Once the Sannin was gone, an uncomfortable silence settled in the room with Naruto looking more dejected than ever. The blonde tried to get what the old pervert had said about Tayuya's role in Sasuke's flight out of his mind but he quickly found himself dwelling on it. Why would she even serve someone like that? Did she actually enjoy working for him? Was he holding something over her to make her subservient? He sneaked a look at his roommate who had gone back to reading whatever magazine it was that she had picked-up.

"Tayuya, I have a question." Naruto asked with a level voice.

The girl flinched but didn't put down her magazine. Keeping her eyes on it rather than the blonde, she replied. "What?"

Naruto took a breath and steeled himself. He had to ask since he was starting to consider the girl as a friend. While he may not have a narrow view of the world, he knew he couldn't associate with someone that would willingly kill his friends and comrades; even if those comrades never saw the real person behind the mask.

"...why do you serve Orochimaru?" There, it was said. The boy kept his gaze on her as he waited for a response. The foremost thought on his mind was that he was actually afraid of what the answer might be...

Tayuya immediately stiffened as if she had been shocked. Slowly, she turned her head to glare directly at the boy who met her eyes evenly. Ever so slightly she narrowed her eyes at the boy. "Why the fuck do you want to know?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes to match hers. "I can't associate with someone who would willingly kill the people I want to protect."

To the blonde's considerable surprise, Tayuya didn't get angry with that but instead doubled-over in laughter leaving Naruto looking like a wide-eyed owl.

"What the fuck are you talking about? I can't kill shit like I am now! If anything, I have to stay in this village no matter what you bastards do to me. Congradu-fuckinglations!" Tayuya coughed out between cackles.

"You have to stay here? What do you mean by that?" Naruto asked, honestly perplexed. When she started to laugh quietly he was actually afraid she had lost her mind.

Tayuya was still giggling to herself when she chose to answer. Without lifting her head, the girl gathered enough air to use her voice.

"What don't you understand, fag? I am a damaged resource; if Orochimaru comes across me..." Tayuya lifted her head to meet the boy's eyes once again and Naruto recoiled visibly at the sight of their dark brown depths. The only other person he had ever seen that deranged was Orochimaru himself. In Tayuya's eyes he could see the barley-kept sanity that seemed to be slipping away. "...if he ever finds me, he'll kill me for sure."

All Naruto could do is stare in shock as the girl calmed herself enough to go back to reading; completely ignoring the concerned look of her roommate...

_**/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/**_

"Jiraiya, you know that jutsu won't work on me." Tsunade said as she poured herself another cup of sake. By the window of her office, a figure appeared out of thin air.

The self-declared super pervert chuckled as he sat on a clutter-free part of the desk. "Heh, my **_Touton no Jutsu_** has never worked on you, has it?" he asked as he stole one of Tsunade's half-empty sake bottles. The Hokage scowled at him but let him have it, she had others.

"Like I would be fooled by that. You remember the last time you used it to try and get a free show, don't you?" the blonde woman was pleased to note the memories of that incident still made Jiraiya shiver. "Now, what do you want from me? Have you already told the kid about taking him off to train? Bet he was pretty happy, huh?" she smiled at the mental picture of Naruto jumping around with his goofy grin on his face after he found out he was getting to leave the village to train for a few years.

"Um...not quite." the pervert mumbled as he downed the remainder of the sake bottle. "He isn't going with me right now."

Tsunade paused mid-gulp and glared at the man's back. "What the hell do you mean he isn't going with you? I though you wanted to take him and now you're going back on that?" the slightly-drunk woman railed.

Jiraiya turned quickly and waved his hands out in front as a warding gesture, he really didn't want to get beat to death right now. "No, no, no! The kid turned me down!"

Tsunade gave him a glare that would have made Orochimaru flinch. "You're lying. That kid is obsessed with training and learning new jutsu's. What the hell did you do to make him turn you down?" she demanded. She was about to berate him some more when she caught what the pervert was saying.

"He wanted to use my training to go after Sasuke." Jiraiya sighed.

"...he's not you, Jiraiya. Sasuke isn't...Orochimaru." Tsunade mumbled before drinking what was left of her sake. If the two of them were going to reminisce then she would need more booze.

Jiraiya pushed-off from the desk and wandered over to the window. For a long time he didn't say anything but eventually he made a sweeping motion at all he could see through the window. "This is why I can't let him be me. The Hidden Leaf, I myself betrayed it." he turned to Tsunade with a cold expression, one that did not belong on his face. "All these years I've been tracking Orochimaru, finding out what he's been doing and keeping tabs on him but you know, always in the back of my mind I would wonder about what it would be like if he came back. I would always keep that tiny slither of hope no matter what I heard about his twisted experiments and insane ambition. I came back all those months ago not because I was checking in...I was checking out. I finally gave up, Tsunade."

Tsunade was quiet during her old teammate's confession. She too had once had some hope for their lost comrade but that was ruthlessly stamped-out years ago once she heard about his involvement in Akatsuki. Amazingly, her old friend had kept hope alive even longer than her which was sad, in her opinion.

"Jiraiya...how could you even hold onto that dream? I mean..." she would have continued if it wasn't for Jiraiya waving her off.

"I know, Tsunade, I know. I realized that a few weeks before I came back. When I found he wanted to actually kill Sarutobi-sensei, I never thought he could do it. It's funny, really; of the three of us only Orochimaru was declared a missing-nin when all three of us betrayed Konoha. I left to find him, you left because of Dan and Nawaki, and he left for power. Are we really any better than him, Tsunade?" the white-haired Sannin asked.

The Hokage squirmed in her seat. She had never seen Jiraiya like this...of course, she hadn't seen him in over fifteen years, but still. Being compared to Orochimaru wasn't something she was to fond of, however, and she let her annoyance show.

"Whatever problems you have with the way you've lived your life are yours alone, don't drag me down with you, I have no regrets about the way I've lived my life up until now, Jiraiya." she huffed. Of course, if Shizune was there she would have managed to calm her mistress down before she had said something like that.

"How do you figure, Tsunade? We missed the Sound invasion, the Kyuubi attack, and Sensei's death. If we were here we could have prevented him from dieing." the Sannin reasoned. "It was only by his grace that you and me weren't declared missing-nin's. I never did check in or anything, only sent him advanced copies of my Icha Icha Paradise. I didn't even tell him Orochimaru was the leader of Hidden Sound!" he barked, more angry at himself than his companion.

Tsunade would have sunk even lower into her chair if it was possible. "I...we...had reasons not to be here..." she argued lamely.

A snort from Jiraiya told her he wasn't buying it. "Don't be so dense, Tsunade. We are shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, we should have dealt with our losses better! If someone like Kakashi could deal with losing both of his teammates and still continue his duty, what does that say about us who call ourselves Sannin? We both lost our family and we ran, Tsunade, we ran away from our duty and obligation like scared children."

At that, the Hokage snapped. With one quick motion she was out of her seat, pinning her former teammate to the opposite wall. Her chair had been pushed out with such force that it was sent though the large bay window behind the desk.

"That's a goddamned lie, Jiraiya! I didn't run from shit!" the blonde woman yelled.

The Frog Hermit was remarkably calm, even with Tsunade's deadly forearm against his windpipe. She could probably kill him right then, he figured. "What do you call it? It took a meeting with Orochimaru himself to convince you to come back! How much longer would we have wasted our lives if Sensei hadn't have died? How many more people would have died! We were out of control, Tsunade, and you knew it!"

The Hokage shook as Jiraiya's words sunk in before recoiling like she was struck. She started to breath in a panic before she forced herself to calm down; she couldn't hyperventilate over this. Numbly, she sank down to her knees, not even trying to stop Jiraiya as he walked past her.

"I-I'm paying for my sins now, Jiraiya. What are you going to do?" Tsunade asked. The Frog Hermit stopped at the door and turned back to the teammate he had known most of his life. Even in her present state he could see the iron will of a Hokage in her eyes; he wondered if he would ever have that inner light again.

Sighing, the old pervert shrugged. "I'm...going to do what I should have done years ago." he said simply as he brushed past the ANBU guards that had arrived. He paused again before he was completely out of sight and added, "Oh, and ask that captured Oto-nin about Akatsuki, I think she knows something. Don't try and force her though, Naruto's on the verge of making her one of his friends and you know what that will mean for you, right?" he chuckled, a bit of life coming back into his face. With that said, he continued his walk out of the Hokage tower without stopping again.

Tsunade sighed deeply as she got back to her feet. The ANBU seemed to be torn on what to do; did Jiraiya-sama assault the Hokage or was it just one of their usual spats?

"Hokage-sama...?" the squad leader started quietly. "What's going on? Are you alright? Where is Jiraiya-sama going?" he asked in a barrage of questions.

"I-I'm fine...just fine." Tsunade replied as she eyed the hole in her window. She opted to sit on her desk and massage her forehead. "As to Jiraiya...he's gone to remove a blight on our villages record." she said simply. The rest of the ANBU team looked to their commander to explain what she meant but it was clear to him that Tsunade would answer nothing more as she roughly pushed her way past him with a quick 'clean this mess up' order. The captain sighed as he surveyed the damage to the office.

'_Well, I'll just pass it off on those two Chuunin's that Tsunade-sama usually drafts to do this kind of thing.' _he thought with a smirk. Now, where did those two get off to...

_**/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/**_

"Anko-chan...why are we down here again?" Kurenai asked as she unrolled yet another scroll. Quickly scanning it, she gently places it in a large stack of scrolls off to her side.

Anko growled and tossed the scroll she was looking through roughly over her shoulder into a disheveled pile. "I'm down here because that old hag of a Hokage wants my medical records. You're down here because I refuse to suffer alone."

Kurenai shook her head as a small smile tugged on the edge of her mouth. She should have expected something like this from Anko. "So, what are we looking for, exactly? All you've said so far is that it's your old medical records or anything relating to a cursed seal. Why does Hokage-sama need this all of a sudden? Is it because of the Uchiha?"

"Whaaaa? You mean you haven't heard about the prisoner?" Anko asked. The red-eyed Jounin tilted her head in confusion. "We've captured a Sound-nin with a cursed seal. Tsunade wants to do whatever it was Sandaime-sama did to me..." Anko answered the unasked question. As she mentioned the cursed seal, her hands snaked up to grasp at the hollow of her neck.

"Why does Hokage-sama care about removing the cursed seal? They will just be executed once Ibiki's division is done with them." Kurenai bluntly stated.

Anko shrugged. "I don't know why she wants the records. Maybe she wants to use her as an experiment or something to see if she has the ability to suppress the Uchiha's seal? Better to use her as a lab rat than me."

Kurenai didn't have anything to say about that so she went back to looking through the scrolls. She was about to start on the second shelf when Anko leapt up with a yell.

"Yatta! Got it!" Anko grinned in triumph as she held up a dusty scroll.

"Well, it didn't take that long, now did it? Let's go deliver this to Hokage-sama." the red-eyed Jounin said as she replaced the scrolls she had pulled out.

Anko was already halfway out the door when she turned to see if her friend was following her. She scowled when she saw the Jounin replacing the scrolls. "Kurenai! Leave that stuff, the Hokage has people to do that for us!"

Kurenai looked back and forth between her friend and the scrolls as she tried to decide what to do. In the end, Anko's nagging won her over and the pair left the disaster room to search-out the Hokage. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Kurenai felt a pang of sympathy to those two Chuunin's Tsunade-sama was so fond of ordering around...

_**/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/**_

"Tsunade-sama? Why are you back here so soon?" Shizune asked. It was a bit of a surprise to see her mentor stalking around the halls of the hospital on her day off. Well, she was probably just avoiding doing her work again, so she wasn't too shocked.

The blatantly annoyed Hokage waved the question off. She was still standing in the doorway of Shizune's office looking downtrodden and pissed all at once.

"Call Morino Ibiki and tell him to be at the Oto-nin's room in less than an hour or else." Tsunade ordered as she walked away. Shizune started to say something but her mentor cut her off with a cold stare.

"I thought we were going to let her recover for the week! Tsunade-sama, why are you-" Shizune started to say but her mentor cut her off with a cold stare.

"Things change." the Hokage coldly said as she continued walking. As an afterthought, she wheeled around and marched back to the office door. "And don't ever lecture me again, Shizune. Ever." With that, the door was slammed and the younger woman could hear the Hokage stomp off.

The short-haired medic sank down into her chair as she thought about the odd-looking hollowness in her mentor's eyes. Things are not going to go well for the Oto-nin, she thought to herself while hoping that Naruto wouldn't end up in the middle of things like he usually did...

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I've been asking myself what category I should put this fiction into. Action/Adventure, Romance, Drama, or Angst. I finally decided on Action/Adventure and Angst in light of the direction I'm taking the character's personalities. I really think that each main character has some motivation to the over-the-top personalities they wear on their sleeve. If you don't like introspective stories like this or don't like seeing your favorite characters act serious, I suggest you find another fiction. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing! 

_**--Small Jutsu List--**_

**_Touton no Jutsu  
_**The jutsu Jiraiya uses to stay invisible when peeping.


	3. Mi

Yosh! The review response has been completely insane for this fiction: 100 reviews for only two chapters...wow. A lot of people say that this one is more mature than my others and I have to agree; this fiction will deal with all sorts of interesting things; betrayal, jealousy, overcoming adversity, all kinds of good stuff. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, I really put my heart into it. Oh, and don't forget to review; I really do take reader responses seriously.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, ninjitsu, ninjutsu, jutsu in general, or my favorite male character in the show; Gaara(he makes his grand entrance this chapter! Yay!).

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**Chapter Three: "Mi"**

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The hospital staff was buzzing incessantly with various rumors. Some were about the Snake Sannin's former apprentice doing strange experiments in the records room, others stating that the sudden arrival of Morino Ibiki meant that one of the hospital staff was going to be arrested as a traitor. The most persistent one, of course, was that the Hokage and the chief of staff, Shizune, had gotten into a huge argument. Regardless of the validities of the rumors, several key players in them found themselves at the same exact location; the hospital room of the demons of Konoha and Oto...

"Looks like a real party here, doesn't it?" Anko chuckled as she spotted Tsunade and Ibiki outside of the room Naruto and Tayuya shared. Kurenai raised an eye at the interrogation specialist but said nothing; she was content to not draw any attention to herself for the time being.

Tsunade scowled at the Special Jounin's chipper attitude but let it slide; she would not trust herself to get mad at anyone at the moment. "Did you find the scroll?"

Anko's smirk grew as she held out the weathered tome. "It's a bit dusty but everything that his important is in there." Anko replied. The blonde Hokage snatched the scroll and gave it a quick scan. Seemingly to her standards, Tsunade slipped it inside her robes before turning to Ibiki.

"Head of Konoha's Interrogation Team, Morino Ibiki." she started. With her tone so serious, the scarred Special Jounin snapped to attention. Even Anko's mood deflated at the all-business atmosphere. "We are to have a joint interrogation of the Oto-nin prisoner." Tsunade finished.

Everyone present was a surprised at this; wasn't the girl still recovering? Never-the-less, Ibiki saluted; the Hokage's gaze left no room for insubordination. Tsunade turned to Anko and Kurenai and measured them with her eyes, it was more than a little unsettling to the two kunoichi.

Apparently satisfied by what she saw, Tsunade cleared her throat. "You two are going to help Ibiki make this as painless as possible." she ordered. Anko seemed unfazed by this but the color drained from Kurenai's face.

"What can we do? Ibiki is the interrogation specialist." the red eyed Jounin argued. Anko winced; wrong answer.

Tsunade resisted the urge to break something; since when did people forget she was the Hokage? "Kurenai, you are a Genjutsu specialist are you not? I said I don't want the girl hurt if I can avoid it. You can..._loosen_...her tongue with a simple jutsu while Anko will try to sympathize with her; if we're lucky she'll tell us everything we need to know without any trouble." Tsunade explained. Anko's face said all that needed to be known about how much she liked her assignment. Somehow, the Special Jounin didn't scream 'sympathy' but everyone wisely chose to keep their collective mouths shut.

The Hokage took a deep breath as her hand hovered over the doorknob to Naruto's room. It would be difficult, but she would do her best to support her old teammate.

'_I'm sorry Jiraiya, I can't go with you to settle things but I can at least get you the information you'll need...' _Tsunade thought to herself. The other shinobi in the hall steeled themselves for what was to come once the hospital door was open. Even though the girl was just a child she was still an enemy. Two Jounin had almost fallen due to her and her teammates; she was a killer, trained in assassination techniques, the former student of Orochimaru, laughing so loud that she could be heard from the hall, still dangerous even though she was injured...

"Laughing?" Tsunade whispered to herself in disbelief. Anko, Kurenai, and Ibiki were just as dumbfounded as the Hokage, what the hell did that girl have to laugh about in her condition? Being shinobi, it wasn't hard to hear what had the girl in such a state and it rocked them and their perspective on the young girl sitting in that room...

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

"You are fucking kidding." Tayuya deadpanned as she listened to her roommate.

Naruto adopted a mock salute and shook his head. "Nope, I beat him with a fart. The idiot must have been in hell, that'll teach him to brag about an advantage in the future." he bragged, actually enjoying this trip down memory lane.

Tayuya couldn't help it, she had to laugh at the story. "I can beat that!" the redhead said between gasps of air. "One time, Jiroubou ate an entire box of pocky before a mission. The poor bastard...we ran for seven hours straight on our way to Tea Country and he was puking his guts out after the first thirty miles since it was so hot!"

"Jiroubou...he was the big guy, right?" Naruto asked. He hadn't heard Tayuya speak much about her former teammates and he wasn't about to bring it up first.

Tayuya nodded, finally ceasing to laugh. "I knew he was a weak fat ass but he must have really been bad if that fatso you were with got him." Tayuya scoffed.

"Choji's a lot stronger than he looks, kinda like Shikamaru." Naruto teased. Tayuya's eyes narrowed at the boy who was calmly smirking.

"I was about to beat that lazy fuck into the ground when that Suna tramp double teamed me." the redhead huffed as she crossed her arms while muttering something about cheap-ass wind-weasels. Naruto had to smile to himself; a few hours ago she would have probably smacked him for bringing that up or got broody. The way she had been talking about her life earlier genuinely scared him and that was something he was desperate to get her mind off of even if she managed to dodge most of his questions about Orochimaru.

Naruto decided, once he had thought long and hard about the way she had casually said her life was forfeit since she was handicapped, that he would help her. Of course, he hadn't told _her _this yet. If he did, Tayuya would probably scream at him about not being a charity case.

'_Well, no need to worry about that right now; we can't do anything until she gets out of the hospital.' _Naruto decided. In the meantime, these little 'arguments' helped Tayuya get her mind off things and just vent; that was something he could understand and in all honesty it helped him get his mind off of Sasuke.

"So, what were the other members of your team like?" Naruto asked suddenly, trying to get the conversation going again.

Tayuya tilted her head in thought; just how would she describe those guys? "Well...there was the self-declared leader, Sakon. He took over after Kimimaro got fucked up by some flu or something; a lot of help his bones did him with that, heh." she chuckled. Obviously, there was no lingering camaraderie between those two. "Sakon, that stupid fag, decided he could tell us all what to do because he thought he was stronger. The bastard; me and Kidoumaru came up with most of the plans." she said, the bitter feelings literally rolling off her.

Naruto tried not to flinch; how he pitied those guys when Tayuya was in a really bad mood. He made a mental note to avoid her on certain days of the month when they got discharged; he would rather face ten Sasuke's all out for blood than a pms'ing Tayuya.

"Kidoumaru was the spider guy, I remember him. Heh, I managed to trick him with a swarm of Kage Bunshins because he played around too much." Naruto critiqued. He went into a detailed explanation of Kidoumaru's web attack and his little game of 'skewer the leaf-nin.'

Tayuya actually looked impressed at his insight once Naruto got finished with his tale. "That's it, you're my new shogi bitch as long as we're in here." she declared. "The freak may have liked to screw around but he was damn smart. Hell, he was almost in my league."

"Shogi, huh? I haven't played that since the Third was alive." Naruto remembered. The blonde had always wondered if the old man had seen though his act. The Sandaime was the only person that paid any attention to him when he was young so the old man had to have suspected something._ 'I wonder if I still have the board he gave me for my sixth birthday...' _Naruto thought.

"The Third? You mean the old guy Orochimaru killed during your pissy little exam, right?" Tayuya asked in her usual tact-less manner.

Naruto nodded, still caught up in his memories. "That old prick wasn't that bad." she said suddenly. The blonde looked up with honest surprise; he had never heard Tayuya come right out and compliment someone. The redhead must have sensed his surprise because she waved him off. "All four of us were surprised that Orochimaru got as hurt as he did." Suddenly, they both shot their eyes over to the hospital door. With a quick glance at one another, they communicated an unvoiced discovery: someone new was outside the door.

"He was hurt?" Naruto asked, making sure to watch what he said while honestly being curious; he knew about Orochimaru's arms being injured but he never did learn the extent of the damage.

Tayuya nodded, now ignoring whoever was eavesdropping. "Sure he was. The bastard was whining so loud I could hear him screaming even in my room and I was a few halls over from him." Suddenly, the redhead started to laugh again, confusing the hell out of Naruto. "Oh man, I just remembered how worried Kabuto was! Shit, he was running around like a fucking headless chicken. I swear I almost saw him in tears crying about his precious 'Orochimaru-sama.' Shit...that guy was such a clingy bitch!" she cackled. Naruto, suddenly assaulted with images of the stoic Kabuto running around having a hissy-fit, collapsed into his bed to stifle his own howls of laugher at the medic-nin's expense.

Outside in the hall, the various Jounin's were still listening to the conversation. Even Tsunade smirked at the girl's description of Kabuto, completely unaware that they had been discovered. The silver-haired brat got off lucky in her opinion. _'If only I hadn't drank so much that morning...' _she mentally lamented.

With one last sigh about what was possibly her last chance to cripple Kabuto long-gone, she moved to open the door but a voice on the other side cut her action short.

"You and the others can come in whenever you want, Tsunade-bachan!" Naruto yelled over Tayuya's laughter. The three Jounin's present looked at each other with varying degrees of surprise while Tsunade actually smiled; the boy had gotten better, it seemed. Still wearing her smile, she opened the door and walked in with the rest of her group following close behind.

Tayuya continued to snicker as she looked over the swarm of people invading her room. She looked over at a smiling, but slightly pensive, Naruto and gestured wildly at the group of adults. "I guess I should feel proud that the old bat feels she needs this much protection from a cripple, huh?" she asked Naruto. The boy gave her a small smile before turning to smirk at Tsunade in a wordless challenge. Both Tayuya and Naruto knew what she was there for but each had their own way of dealing with it; Tayuya with insults and taunts, Naruto with semi-seriousness and taunts.

The Hokage frowned at the lack of respect from the girl. If she was in Tayuya's predicament, she would show a bit more cutesy to the person holding the preverbal axe over her neck. "Tayuya-san...perky as always, I see." she deadpanned. The redhead snorted and subtly flipped her off, not that the keen-eyed Hokage didn't notice.

Naruto, catching the gesture, quickly reverted to his happy-go-lucky face to disarm the situation. "Tsunade-bachan!" he yelled. "You're all here to tell me that you've decided to promote me to Chuunin for my awesome work, right?" Naruto asked with fake enthusiasm.

"No, Naruto." Tsunade sighed. Just when she though the kid was getting better he falls right back into his immature rut. Well, at least he got the Oto-nin to lighten up if the laughter she heard before coming in was any indication. "We're actually here to ask Tayuya a few questions."

The redhead eyes now took on a sharper edge. Years of training worked silently as she assessed each of the people that had followed the woman in. _'Big guy in the trench coat is probably the muscle, the spiky-haired woman I don't know, she's done this before, though...the other woman might be a genjutsu user judging by the way she's unarmed.' _Tayuya thought. She caught the body language of the Jounin and smirked, she was new at this.

"You." Tayuya said, pointing at the red-eyed Kurenai. The older woman seemed a little hesitant to be the center of attention but she still nodded in acknowledgement. Tayuya smiled viciously at her, time to have a bit of fun. "You're a genjutsu user, right? Gonna dig around my brain like the bitch you are?" Tayuya said plainly.

All of the Jounin's got tense; the girl was not unskilled if she could pick something like that up. Kurenai brushed the comment off as she casually nodded; she had heard much worse than that in her life.

Naruto could feel the tension in the air. Leave it to his new friend to make trouble like that. "Tsunade-bachan! Tayuya was a flunky! What would she know about anything?" he asked, ignoring the glare the Oto-nin sent him. At least she was being quiet for a change.

Tsunade glanced over at the blonde, not really regarding him at the moment. "This doesn't concern you, Naruto. If she cooperates, then I could be swayed to be lenient; if she doesn't..." she let the veiled threat hang in the air.

"Ha! I was with Orochimaru for over eight years, you pricks can't hold a candle to that psycho." Tayuya scoffed. She saw the big guy tense so she turned to him. "What is it, bitch, you think you have the balls to screw with me? Kabuto is more threatening than you and he's a fruit!"

Ibiki mearly stood there. He was an interrogation specialist, they all acted tough at first. Even if the idea of...persuading...a young kid that was obviously already bad-off wasn't something he took joy in, an order was an order and he would follow it to the letter should the Hokage say anything.

"Only eight years?" Anko scoffed. All eyes turned to the Special Jounin who had, until now, been silent. "I was the bastard's first little guinea pig. _You _are a replacement for _me_. He doesn't care about you, he doesn't like you, he isn't someone that should be protected. He will only use you until you're a dried husk of a person then discard you like you're trash!" Anko argued, passionately. Kurenai frowned slightly at this, she knew how much her friend detested the way she had been used early in life.

Tayuya just blinked at the woman. "You think I didn't know that?"

Anko jerked back as if she were physically harmed by the words. "W-what do you mean?" she stuttered.

At the sound of Anko's wavering voice, Tayuya started to snicker to herself, ignoring or not noticing the warning look Naruto was sending her and the glare of Kurenai. "I said that I already knew all that! No one gives anything for free; Orochimaru offered me power and I took it knowing full well that I would be his slave for the rest of my fucking life." she said evenly.

"Why would you do something like that?-!" Naruto yelled, forgetting just who was in the room for the time being.

Tsunade was about to order the blonde to be silent but the look in his eyes made her pause. There was confusion, which Tsunade expected, but there was also concern, disbelief, hurt, pain, betrayal; many more emotions than she had ever seen or expected from Naruto but there was something else; something that flashed in his eyes for but only a moment. She had only seen that look from the blonde once before and only for an instant then. Before she could think on it anymore, however, Tayuya brought her back to the present.

"It's none of your damn business! Just mind your own business, bas--" Tayuya suddenly stopped mid-insult and clutched her stomach. "Oh...god..." That was the queue for all hell to let loose on the girl. With a tormented scream, she fell onto her side breathing heavily.

Tsunade was by her in an instant running a diagnostic jutsu. "Shit! She's bleeding internally again!" the Hokage cursed. Naruto was out of his bed in an instant and at the foot of the girls bed. Tayuya was starting to gag and cough as she panted heavily. Naruto became even more distressed as he saw the tiny droplets of blood littering the white bed sheet by her mouth.

The Hokage turned to the stunned Jounin even as she was doing hand seals. "One of you get Shizune and a medical team! Tell her to get an operating room cleared **now**!" she barked. Kurenai was already on her way out of the door with Anko right behind her when Tsunade started yelling. Ibiki, seeing he was not immediately needed, stepped off to the back of the room to observe. He did, however, order the ANBU guard to stay out of the way once he poked his head in to see what was happening.

"Tsunade-sama, is she going to be alright?" Naruto asked as Tsunade started her healing jutsu. The young-looking Hokage grimaced; the jutsu wasn't having the effect she wanted. For the moment she ignored the boy, far too caught-up in trying to get her jutsu to work. Suddenly, a thought came to her and she snapped her head up to find an errand-boy.

"Ibiki!" The Special Jounin was slightly surprised that the Hokage had called him but he walked over to stand behind Naruto. "Hyuuga Neji is still recovering in room 198. Get him up here ASAP!"

Still slightly confused, Ibiki made his way out of the room to find the Genin in question. Naruto shot Tsunade a worried gaze yet again but dropped it once he saw how stressed the older woman was.

Within minutes, Shizune was in the room and assisting Tsunade with the chakra repairs. The Hokage could tell her apprentice was seething seeing as she had advised her mentor to wait on the interrogation. The young medic still retained her professional air, though. Tsunade could be scolded later for her rushing things.

"You called for me, Hokage-sama?" came the questioning voice of one Hyuuga Neji. He was still bandaged quite heavily but he was able to move under his own power but was just as confused as Naruto. Kurenai, Anko, and Ibiki retreated to the back of the room again, content to stay out of the medic staff's way.

Tsunade breathed a sigh of relief. "Neji, use your Byakugan on this girl and tell me what you see." she ordered. Even more confused than before, Neji complied and activated his blood limit. What he saw made him scowl.

"Her inner coils from the lower waste down are severely damaged." he shifted his piercing gaze down to her legs. "I can't even make out her tenketsu points in her legs."

"What about our jutsu, what is it doing to her system?" Tsunade asked. She had already suspected the girl's chakra pathways in her legs were unusable but if the damage extended into her waist…

Neji studied the chakra movements of the girl closely. The medical jutsu was attempting to heal the damage to organs that didn't have many chakra pathways leading to them. "The chakra is healing some, but most of the effects are dulled by the damage." he stated.

Tsunade ceased her jutsu and wiped a stray bead of sweat from her brow. "That's what I thought." she muttered. Turning to Shizune, the Hokage motioned for her to stop her jutsu. Naruto stared at them both, obviously distressed.

"Why did you stop?" he demanded. A cough from Tayuya made him stress the next question that much more. "Why aren't you doing anything!"

Shizune started to say something but Tsunade cut her off. "We can't help her." she deadpanned. Her attitude softened a bit once she saw the anguish on the boy's face.

"That's a lie! You did it before!" he yelled. Naruto moved to the other side of Tayuya's bed by Shizune. The redhead's face was ashen white and the blood spots had increased since the last time he got a good look at them.

Tsunade's face turned somber. "Naruto…if we can't use chakra to heal her then we can't do anything. She had internal bleeding that we can't stop! The only reason she's lasted as long as she has is because of the power of the seal room and even that was just a temporary fix."

Naruto's breath started to get haggard as he slowly snaked out his hand to the girl's bedside. Only Shizune could see him grab the girl's hand from where she was standing and only she could see the girl slightly tense her grip. It was then that Shizune made her decision.

"Tsunade-sama, let me try to save her!"

All eyes turned to the girl. Tsunade looked annoyed while Naruto looked like he could hug her. "Shizune, if I can't do anything what makes you think-"

"I'll go in manually and stopping the bleeding." Shizune answered, cutting the older woman off.

"Shizune, this is a ninja hospital, we don't carryout operations like that here. We don't have the supplies or the expertise on hand for that kind of operation!" she snapped.

The young medic-nin kept her hard gaze on the older woman. "Let me try."

Tsunade could feel the pleading eyes of Naruto even if she wasn't looking directly at him. Turning sharply from the bed, she started to walk towards the door, much to the shock of everyone present.

"You don't have the talent to do this kind of operation, Shizune." she said bluntly. The short-haired medic was trying to hold in her rage but it was quickly becoming impossible.

"You…" she started but she was the one cutoff by the Hokage's hand gesturing for her to be silent.

"I said that _you _don't have the expertise, not _me_." Naruto's eyes widened and he looked down at the stoic Tayuya. "Have her brought to a spare room and we'll get to work."

When no one moved and only stared at her, she shook her fist and started to bark orders to everyone present. Soon, the Oto-nin was wheeled out of the room and shut-up behind closed doors. Naruto, mentally drained by worrying and stress, collapsed on one of the benches and was quickly asleep. His dreams were uninterrupted even when the light of the operating room died and was undisturbed when Shizune, several hours later, draped a blanket over his sleeping form...

_**------------**_

"Shikamaru! Wake up and say hello to Choji!" Ino scolded as she belted the hapless Chuunin.

Said lazy Nara only opened one eye and made a small wave which was more than enough for his bedridden friend. "Nah, it's too early to be bothering Choji, he probably wants to sleep."

Ino rolled her eyes. "It's 9:00am! What kind of shinobi are you?" she raved. Choji, for his part, simply watched his two best friends argue back and forth. He had only been in the hospital a little over a day and a half and already his teammates were practically living in his room. Of course, there was another presence that he did mind, however...

"Hey, leave the guy alone! It's too early to be listening to your bickering." Temari practically whined as she leaned forward in her chair. Ino turned to her fully to level a glare at the Suna-nin leaving Shikamaru an opportunity to weasel out of Ino's scolding.

"Why are you here again? You do remember where your own village is, right? It's the big sandbox about one hundred miles to the east, you can't miss it." Ino taunted.

Temari, inwardly seething, forced her face to bend to her will and not scowl. Instead, the kunoichi smiled sweetly at the irksome blonde. "It is? I never would have guess someone like _you _would be a geography buff. It's nice to know that you're not as air-headed as you look." she laughed.

Shikamaru was doing his best to ignore the obvious hostility between the two girls and continued chatting with Choji. It would be too troublesome to get in the middle of a catfight and secretly, he enjoyed the show like any other red-blooded male.

"So, where's your boss...oh, sorry; I mean your _little _brother." Ino asked, mentally snickering at the fact that the quad-pony tailed girl was once completely terrified of her brother. Not that she wasn't scared to death of the sleep-deprived boy, but still, it was the principle of the matter.

Temari dismissed the thinly-veiled jab with the wave of her hand. Hell, you would have to be as crazy as Gaara not to be afraid of Tanuki-container. "He's off looking for that Naruto brat. We stopped by his room but he wasn't there."

At that, Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "Was that Oto-nin there?" he asked. Temari looked confused so he figured that the redhead was not. "The girl we fought a day ago, the one with the flute."

"Oh, the girl I saved your lazy ass from. Why would she be here? She's dead, right?" Temari asked with a smirk.

Shikamaru chose to ignore the taunt; why refute something that was basically true? Instead, he answered her questions. "She was brought in right before Naruto and they share the room. If she's not there and he's gone too, something must have happened." he groaned as he rose from his seat. "Come on, we'll go look into it since you're brother won't be happy until he sees his best friend. Ino can keep Choji company until I get back."

Temari resisted the urge to stick-out her tongue at Ino as she rose to follow Shikamaru; it was so much fun seeing the younger blonde get so bent out of shape for no reason. "Sure. Kankuro is probably down at the cafeteria, can we pick him up on the way?" she asked. Shikamaru only groaned lightly so she assumed that was a 'yes' in lazy-language.

As the pair walked out, Ino quietly seethed. "I don't believe him! He's falling right into Temari's clutches!" she ranted. Choji, still being unable to move for the most part, tried to placate his irate teammate.

"They're just going to find Naruto and her brother, Ino." Choji argued. When he saw that Ino wasn't going to be much fun, he fake-yawned. "You know, I'm pretty tired. Think you could come back in a few hours when it's a more reasonable hour, Ino?"

The blonde turned to him with a scowl but there was no real anger behind it. "You're spending too much time around Shikamaru and Asuma-sensei." Never-the-less, Ino headed to the door as Choji snuggled deeper into his pillow. She flicked-off the light and walked though the door, only pausing for a moment on the other side.

"...thank you, Choji." she mumbled before running off to find Temari and Shikamaru.

_**------------**_

If anyone knew Gaara of the Sands, they would say that he was not a patient person. Sure, at first glance one might group him with people like Hyuuga Neji or Uchiha Sasuke but they would be wrong, dead wrong. The stoic redhead may not look it, but he is quite spoiled. After all, would you tell someone that could crush you with sand 'no?' As such, Suna's Jinchuuriki was currently at the end of his admittedly short rope as he searched for his blonde friend.

"..." Gaara resisted the urge to sigh when another hospital floor didn't turn up the object of his manhunt. He had started on the second floor, where Naruto's room was, but had not found the boy. His siblings each said they would go and look on other floors but he was positive they were goofing off somewhere. He figured that this was a sign he had improved, however, as if this had happened several weeks ago when he was...less _hospitable_...Kankuro would be a twitching sack of flesh in the middle of the cafeteria where he was most certainly not looking for Naruto.

"Gaara! Over here!" the Suna-nin turned to see the form of his older sister coming up the flight of stairs adjacent to the ones he was ascending.

He absently noticed the spiky-haired boy and blonde girl following behind her. "Temari." he acknowledged. "Have you found Uzumaki?" he asked. Judging by the way his sister flinched, he counted that as a 'no.'

Shikamaru leaned against the side of the hospital wall as Ino scowled at the back of Temari's head as the sand siblings conversed. "Ino, if you're just going to be rude you didn't have to come; it's so troublesome to argue with people for no reason."

The blonde kunoichi turned sharply to face the high-and-mighty Chuunin. "I have a reason!" she hissed. Shikamaru's expression clearly said, 'no you don't' so she turned back to glaring with a huff. She would shove that reason down his throat...whenever she discovered what it was. For now though, she was content to give into her blind annoyance at the Suna-nin just to make herself feel better.

"Temari, you are aware that the blonde girl you walked up here with doesn't like you very much, right?" Gaara asked. Ino wasn't being inconspicuous about the target of her loathing and it was painfully obvious to the Tanuki-container.

"Yeah, she doesn't like me for some reason." Temari smirked, turning just enough to see the irked blonde out of the corner of her eye.

Gaara shrugged; it wasn't any of his business. he leaned around Temari to address the two Konoha-nins. "Have either of you two seen Uzumaki?" Gaara asked in his usual monotone voice. When they both shook their heads, he gave an unperceivable sigh and started to ascend the stairs to the next floor when someone caught his attention.

"Gaara-sama..." the Suna-nin turned to see a short-haired woman standing at the foot of the stairs. He raised an eye at the honorific but didn't say anything about it. "You're looking for Naruto-kun, correct?"

That got his attention. Maybe this woman could end his search of this infernal building. "I am." he said simply.

"He's on the third floor asleep on the waiting room couch. He was sitting there all night waiting for Tayuya-san to come of the operation." Shizune said with a small smile. Gaara, glad that he now had a destination, thanked the woman and made his way up to the third floor with Temari in toe. Shikamaru had announced that since he found Gaara, he was going back to check on his teammate with Ino.

Temari smiled to herself as she flowed her little brother. If anyone had told her a year ago that the Jinchuuriki would not only insist on helping another village but also do it for a friend, she would have laughed in their face. Although her brother was still introverted and a bit creepy, he was more or less normal. Well, as normal as a twelve year-old trained killer could be. At least he wasn't killing people just for looking at him wrong.

Gaara stopped so abruptly that the reminiscing kunoichi almost slammed into his back. "What is it, Gaara?" Temari half-whined as she peered over the fiery-haired boy's shoulder.

In front of the two Suna-nins was the hall directly outside of the IC unit of Konoha's hospital. On one of the benches slept one Uzumaki Naruto, the object of Gaara's search. However, this created a problem for the boy. He had found Naruto but he had no idea of what to do now. The last time he had seen the blonde was the invasion of Konoha. Would Naruto be angry now that he had the time to think about what had transpired? It was true that Suna and Konoha were now allies again, but the red-haired boy knew for a fact people kept grudges. Because of all his doubts, Gaara hesitated in actually saying anything to the sleeping boy.

Temari was silently wondering what her brother was doing. The look on his face, from what she could see of it, was pensive and calculating; almost as if he were planning a course of action in battle. After a minute ticked by, she got tired of just standing there and walked past her still hesitating brother and claimed the bench right across from Naruto's.

"Gaara, come sit over here and wait for him to wake-up." she whispered. The Tanuki-container blinked but did as his older sister ordered and took a seat next to her. Seeing that her brother was still a bit unnerved, and having an idea on why he was so nervous, she tried to start a conversation.

"You know, I'm a bit worried about what he'll say to me." Temari said. Gaara looked up at her with a confused expression. She smiled lopsidedly at her brother before elaborating. "Shikamaru said he was getting chummy with that Oto-nin me and him fought. Since I'm the reason she's in this hospital, I don't know if he'll blame me for it." she sighed. In reality, she really didn't care what Naruto though of her. It was a mission and she completed it; any good shinobi would know that and not hold a grudge.

'_Oh the things I do for my little brother.' _the sandy blonde mentally sighed, secretly happy that she could dote on the boy once again like she had done back before he was unbalanced.

Gaara scrunched up his face; he hadn't thought of that. He shifted his eyes over to the door that this so-called 'friend of Naruto's' was and wondered if Temari being here was a good thing. Well, it made him feel better that she was there so if Naruto was angry at her they could cross that bridge when it actually happened. A random thought did find it's way to him lips, though. "...I don't think he would be mad that you saved his other friends life." the stoic boy replied.

"Hadn't thought of that..." Temari said in all honesty. That was true, Shikamaru would be a long-gone if she hadn't have shown up when she did; as would most of his other friends.

With the new-found resolution, the sand siblings fell into a comfortable silence waiting on the other boy to stir. As the minutes ticked by, Temari thought of more things to chat about, mostly the fashions of Konoha or good places to eat, but to her surprise, Gaara was making an effort to stay in the conversations. Evidently they had gotten loud since the other occupant of the room yawned and kicked his blanket off as he stretched.

Naruto yawned as his eyes adjusted to the light of the hall. He found that his back ached as if he had been sleeping wrong...then it hit him.

"Tayuya-chan!" Naruto jerked his head over to the IC unit's door only to find the light off. He hoped that meant a good thing as he rose from the bench...well, he tried to get-up but with a blanket wrapped around his legs he found soon found himself sprawled-out on the hospital's floor. the bandages on his arms and legs didn't help matters. "Owww..."

To Naruto's surprise, he looked up in time to see a hand extended to him. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he accepted the help and was pulled to his feet to be eye-level with one Sabaku no Gaara. "Hey, Gaara! When did you get here?" Naruto asked, trying to hide the distraction Tayuya's condition was causing him.

The Suna-nin nodded slightly at the other boy. "Uzumaki-san." he said as his form of greeting. Naruto blinked at the formality, but said nothing of it. "We arrived yesterday with the rest of the team you were on. I'm...sorry...that I haven't been able to visit you sooner." Gaara said with sincerity. "Temari wanted to go 'check-out the local guys' and Kankuro was hungry..." he trailed off. From behind him, his sister started to blush at the comments.

Naruto chucked a bit at the girls unease. Both Suna-nin were surprised that it was such a restrained laugh; the boy must still be recovering, they assumed. At that moment, the door to the IC ward swung open to reveal none other than the Godamie Hokage holding a clipboard and looking quite cross.

"You three should be more quiet, I have a patent that needs her rest, you know." Tsunade grumbled while she tried to glare. The effect was lost, however, as her body rebelled and chose to yawn.

Naruto ran over to her with a huge smile. "She's ok? You said she was resting so she's gotta be alright!" he declared.

Tsunade hushed him again before nodding. "Yes, she came out of it pretty well, all things considered. She'll have to watch her lower body to make sure she doesn't get harmed in the future but other than that she shouldn't have any lasting problems that she didn't have before the operation." the supreme medic-nin answered, trying not to mention her handicap. "You can go see her if you can behave." Tsunade added.

Naruto's face lit-up as he nodded emphatically. In a blur of motion, he was around and behind the older woman and almost though the door before he paused. When he turned around, he looked to Gaara and Temari who where still standing where he had rudely left them. "Aren't you guys coming?" he asked.

Gaara was surprised at the question; he hadn't figured he was invited. Temari looked even more off balance; didn't the boy know she was the reason the Oto-nin was in the hospital in the first place? She looked to Gaara for what to do. When he shrugged at her, she sighed and followed her little brother and his best friend; somehow knowing this meeting would be much worse than her tiff with Ino.

"Well, well. Naruto does have a talent for working people over, doesn't he?" Tsunade said to herself as the three Genin's made their way into the IC ward. "Heh, seems princess has more people to bother her; serves the brat right for cursing at me even when under anesthetic..." the Hokage mumbled, making sure no one was around to overhear. After all, it wasn't becoming of a lady her age to get caught-up in a insult match with a fourteen year-old.

'_I'm going to have to swear Shizune to silence...the authority of a Hokage comes in handy when I'm trying to protect my valuable reputation, hehehe.'_ Tsunade chuckled to herself. With one last look of smugness at the door to Tayuya's room, she left her irksome patent to the mercy of Uzumaki Naruto...it was shaping up to be a good day, she decided.

* * *

How was that? Bet you didn't think Gaara and the sand siblings would make an appearance, did you? Hope you liked the latest chapter! Tell me what you think though reviews because I can't read your mind...or can I? Kukuku... 


	4. Accelerando

You know, I actually updated all my stories at about the same time. While readers like this, I don't since I then have to pick a story from my top three to update first and it gets some fans mad. For once, though, the decision is obvious for me; I'll just update the one I would like to read first. With that said, I give you the latest chapter of Dueling Harmonies; the best fiction that I've ever done.

Also, since I'm so happy with the way this fiction is turning out, I would like to know if any of my readers with a deviant art account would like to do a fan art drawing for me? It doesn't have to be anything time-consuming but just something that I could put up on my profile. I don't have any scenes in mind so do whatever you want! The good part about this is that there is not one, _not one_, piece of Naruto/Tayuya fan art on the internet. Trust me, I've looked.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kitsune demons, Doki demons, Tanuki demons, lawyers, weasel demons, puppet demons, or anything else demonic.

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**Chapter Four: "Accelerando"**

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* * *

**It was a bad day to be the Hokage of Konohagakure. Normally, anyone would kill to have that kind of power over a veritable army of shinobi that would literally do anything you ordered of them. The fame, fortune, and respect of the position sparked the imagination of dreamers from all over Fire County and many a man, and woman, has declared they would one day attain that grace.

Unfortunately for Tsunade, for all the position was worth she couldn't hide from the one person even she feared and no amount of political clout, or silly-looking Hokage hats, would save her today...

"**Tsunade-sama!" **

Yes, if Tsunade had her strange Hokage hat she would have certainly hidden behind it by now. A very cross Shizune stormed into the blonde's office once she was cleared by the ANBU guards. Tsunade sighed; she had been expecting this since the operation.

Shizune just started at her mentor with a frown, her eyes projecting every accusation she could possibly make at the moment. No words were said but the short-haired medic didn't need them. She was rewarded when the older woman started to squirm in her seat like an academy student that was waiting on the principal to start scolding. Still, Shizune said nothing and simply stared; her eyes burning twin holes into her mentor. Tsunade was really starting to get worried, what the hell was up with this? Yelling, screaming, even physical attack she could handle but the silent accusations, the unspoken judgment that her student was sending at her was too much.

"Ok, ok! You were right and I was wrong! I pushed too much and it blew-up in my face, you saved the day with the operation, and you pulled my ass out of the fire!" the Sannin blurted out in a single breath. Who cared if her pride was ripped to tatters; she'd do anything to make those eyes stop judging her!

"Oh? I wasn't accusing you of anything, Tsunade-sama." Shizune said in her sickly-sweet voice while doing a complete personality 180. "I only came to inform you that Haruno Sakura would like to speak with you."

Tsunade cursed under her breath; whatever it was that gave Shizune that power over her should be bottled and given to ANBU. If anything, it would make interrogations easier. "I-Is that so? Um, send her in?" the supreme leader of the Leaf croaked.

Shizune nodded and, without another word, walked out the office to get the pink-haired kunoichi. Once she was gone, Tsunade let out a breath and fell back deeper into her chair. "At least I don't have to deal with any other creepy kids with killer glares." she thought out loud. It was at that moment Haruno Sakura chose to enter the room. With a resounding echo, the door slammed shut and Tsunade was pinned with another set of steel eyes.

"Tsunade-sama, I want you to train me!" Sakura said resolutely.

At first, the Hokage just stared at the girl. Then she blinked...several times. "Do you have any idea how much work that would take? It's not something someone with your personality can do easily." Tsunade stated bluntly, really not wanting to deal with this right now.

Sakura winced at accusation but immediately brought herself back up with an inner fire Tsunade hadn't seen since Shizune. It was amazing, in her opinion, how much she saw her star pupil in this girl. Granted, she had only met her a few days prior but the Slug Sannin prided herself on being able to spot talent; Jiraiya and Orochimaru weren't the only ones that were blessed in that department.

"I won't fail this! I swore that I would get the power I need to help Naruto and rescue Sasuke-kun; please, just give me a chance to change!" Sakura pleaded. Her tone, a mix between steel and pleading, made Tsunade re-evaluate the seemingly un-remarkable girl standing before her.

For the most part, Sakura was the opposite of what she was as a child. While the future Hokage had been the only kunoichi in her team, she easily out-paced Jiraiya in their Genin days. She was smart, strong, useful, talented; everything one should look for in a first-class shinobi. The girl before her, however, was weak, unmotivated, clingy, hesitant, and had no natural talent beyond good chakra control, however, even that was something any diligent ninja could improve with practice. No, this girl was not a genius or an actual shinobi of the leaf; she was a girl that was playing ninja. "You're also something I can mold..." Tsunade quietly mused.

Sakura heard Tsunade say something but didn't catch what exactly was said. "Tsunade-sama?"

The Godamie Hokage ignored the girl and went back to reading some random papers on her desk. "Your record for sticking to something once you start is pathetic, you know that?" she asked in a bored tone of voice, randomly shuffling papers.

"Yes, Hokage-sama..." Sakura answered with a sight. She was about to ask to leave but the older woman cut her off.

"If you don't stick to this, I'll make you Mitarashi Anko's permanent apprentice, understand?"

Sakura's eyes lit up and her breath hitched in her lungs. "Does that mean...?"

"Be here tomorrow at 7:00am for an official test; I have to see just how much work you need to be worthy to be an apprentice to a Sannin." the woman smirked. A flurry of 'thank-you's' followed and Tsunade had to smile. This girl may not have talent yet but she has an objective in sight; that's something the Hokage herself didn't find until she was far past Sakura's age. As she watched Sakura pump her fist in the air, she mused that this pink-haired ball of energy wasn't too much different from her favorite little Genin.

"Damn! I didn't get a chance to talk to Shizune! She better not run her mouth..." Tsunade suddenly blurted. Sakura stopped her one girl victory parade and stared at her new teacher in confusion but the Sannin held her tongue.

_'Oh well, everyone has their quirks. At least she'll always be on time in the morning, unlike Kakashi-sensei.'_ Sakura thought happily. Of course, Sakura didn't know about Tsunade's frequent indulges of sake and the late mornings that resulted from it.

Sakura's dancing was interrupted by the office door opening. The Genin quickly got out of the way as Morino Ibiki stalked through the door. Tsunade casually dismissed Sakura with the wave of her hand. The pink-haired girl, now a bit more subdued, bowed to both figures and quickly left.

"Guess she still remembers the first exam, huh?" Tsunade chuckled once Sakura was gone.

"Heh, I would have thought Anko would have left enough more of an impression." he sighed.

Tsunade leaned back in her chair. "One would think...so, what is it?" she asked, cutting strait to business.

The interrogation specialist straightened up immediately. "Right, I came to inquire on whether or not we'll be conduction another interrogation of the Hidden Sound prisoner." To his credit, he didn't so much as flinch when Tsunade scowled in his direction.

"You do remember what happened yesterday, don't you?" she asked, not really believing what Ibiki was saying.

The scarred man's eyes narrowed a bit; this Hokage was certainly quite squeamish. "That is why I want to conduct the interrogation right away. She'll be more compliment now that she knows her life rests in your hands. She might just tell us what we need to know out of gratitude."

Tsunade scoffed; the day that redhead was grateful about anything would be the day she hands over the Hokage title to Orochimaru. She was about to say as much when a stray thought hit her; the blonde almost punched herself for not thinking of it sooner. "Shizune! Get in here!" she barked, happy that she could once again order Shizune around guilt-free. Ibiki made a slight face at being ignored but held his tongue.

The young medic-nin entered quickly and nodded at Ibiki before coming to stop before Tsunade's desk. "Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"Get me Uzumaki Naruto." she answered with a smirk. "I have a mission for him." 

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

"Are you sure about this?" Temari asked the exuberant blonde as she and Gaara followed the "#1 Hyperactive shinobi of Konoha" towards the room Tayuya was recovering in.

Naruto paused just before reaching out to turn the door handle of his friend's room. "The more the merrier when visiting someone in the hospital, I say." he huffed as he squinted his eyes sagely. Gaara's body language showed he was a bit tense but still mostly at ease with his surroundings so he wouldn't be any trouble, in Naruto's opinion. The Tanuki-container would be the one most likely to be a problem since the last time the blonde had seen him they were beating the hell out of each other but so far the ring-eyed boy was relaxed and, dare he say it, friendly in a stoic kind of way.

The Suna kunoichi sighed, while she liked Gaara getting friends, she wished he would have better standards. "What part of 'I'm the reason she's in here' don't you understand? She's going to go apeshit once she sees me." Temari argued.

"Oh, that." Naruto understated immensely. "If you can get over losing to Shikamaru then I think Tayuya will be fine. She was...er..." Naruto struggled for a second, trying to find the right words. "...well, she didn't try to kill Shikamaru when he visited me. I think she understands the whole 'doing the mission' thing." Naruto rationalized.

Gaara raised a barren eyebrow at the blonde's choice of words. Hadn't he said the same thing to Temari a few minutes ago? Temari seemed equally surprised at the logic; maybe the brat wasn't as dumb as she first thought?

"Well...I guess we could give it a try." she reluctantly agreed. Naruto broke out into a huge fox-grin and opened the door to room to enter with the two Suna-nin in tow. A cat-masked ANBU was standing further down the hall. He turned his head to regard the group, but then returned it to the front-and-center, continuing his counting of floor tiles...

Tayuya's temporary quarters were very drab and dull; not even a window to look out of. The light from a florescent fixture in the ceiling cast the white room in a role that made it look more like a asylum than a place of healing. Temari and Gaara stood by the door allowing Naruto to see the patient first. It was only right, in their minds, since he knew her better.

The Oto-nin was a bit paler than usual but otherwise looked to be in better shape than the day before. To Naruto surprise, she was hunched over a clipboard and was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that the blonde's presence went unnoticed as he peeked around the white cloth that was there to give her a bit of privacy.

Naruto noticed that it wasn't words Tayuya was writing but various lines and symbols. From the distance and his position he couldn't make out exactly what they were but he was loath to disturb the girl when she was so engrossed in something.

Temari and Gaara were utterly confused at Naruto's behavior. The normally loud-mouthed blonde was just standing there craning his head around the divider seemingly staring at the girl. Was she asleep or something? The two of them decided to walk up behind the boy to see what was going on so now there were three people watching Tayuya scribble madly.

"Hell yeah! That's just the thing...lets see how that sounds." Tayuya said to herself in a rare moment of excitement. If Naruto got a shock from that, what she did next shocked him. The Oto-nin started to hum...loudly. Her deep voice that would sound out of place for any other girl assaulted his ears with the melody she was performing. It was fast and demanding; like the performer. Soon, Tayuya started to tap her finger on the table beside her bed. Her fingers played back and forth on the metal surface meshing with her humming quite well to produce an overall effect that was simply mesmerizing. The tiny bit of chakra filtering into the air reminded the uninvited audience that the Sound kunoichi could use the notes to a devastating effect should she choose too but it gave the performance a dangerous edge that Naruto found himself unable to stop listening too.

With a wild flourish of raps on the table, Tayuya finished her tune and smiled to herself in triumph. "Heh, I've got to record this!" With a rush of movement, she drew frantically on her paper and the Kyuubi-container finally found out what it was his friend was drawing: it was sheet music.

With one last mark, the Oto-nin held up the paper and grinned at her work. The blonde boy couldn't help but gape at the smile, it was so much like his own. Behind him, Gaara and Temari were equally stunned. The Suna kunoichi because she never would have imagined the demonic-looking beast that was fighting Shikamaru could be the girl in front of her. Gaara was quiet for a different reason, however; he felt something stir when he watched the strange girl. The feeling was foreign to him and he was in quiet contemplation trying to figure out what it could be.

"So, what do you call it?" Naruto asked, deciding to speak-up once he was sure Tayuya was done writing.

The kunoichi snapped her head up with a look of horror etched on her face replacing her former enchanting smile. She just started dumbly at the smiling blonde boy, not even noticing the other two tuffs of hair poking out behind him. "What the fuck! How long have you been there, bastard!"

The Konoha-nin walked fully out from the divider and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Um...since you started humming." he admitted.

Tayuya was literally shaking by this point. In a flash of motion, she grabbed the closest object, a steel medical tray, and threw it at the blonde like a large shuriken. The tray clocked the stunned boy squarely on the head and sent him falling backwards onto his back with a large knot forming on his forehead. Gaara and Temari wisely retreated to the other side of the screen to avoid being seen; better to let the girl vent on Naruto than them.

"Owww...was that really necessary?" Naruto whined as he sat up.

"Yes, bastard, it was." Tayuya growled. "Haven't you ever heard of not spying on people?" she barked.

Rubbing his head, the blonde boy smirked. "I'm a ninja, I'm supposed to spy on people. You should have noticed me the second I came into the room!" he chided.

Momentarily taken aback that the boy was arguing back, even if it was just playful banter, Tayuya could stop Naruto from grabbing her sheet music.

"Hmmm..." Naruto looked over the pilfered paper as Tayuya raved at him, trying to get the paper back. Keeping it out of her reach, he looked over the mass of lines and notes. To his surprise, there were over three pages worth. "_'Tsukihi no Soeki'_, huh? It's really good, Tayuya-san!" Naruto chirped before handing it back to the scowling kunoichi.

With her music back in her possession, she quickly punched Naruto in his spare rib. The action caused the boy to yet again fall to the floor in pain. "That should teach you to fucking mess with me, bitch." she said smugly.

As Naruto was clutching his side in pure agony, Gaara walked out with a weary Temari. The Suna Jinchuuriki glanced at the blonde before turning to Temari. "Is that how friends act?" he asked in all seriousness.

"Uh, well...sometimes really close friends argue like that..." Temari stated, not really believing what she was saying. Tayuya had noticed the dusky blonde the second she stepped into her range of vision and narrowed her eyes dangerously. "Oh, look at what the fucking weasel dragged in; a Sand bitch." Tayuya hissed.

Naruto, now slightly recovered from Tayuya's sucker punch, rose to his feet and watched the glare war going on between the two kunoichi.

"Is that the cold tone of defeat I hear?" Temari said, cupping her hand around her ear. "You know, I think it is!"

"You know what I hear?" Tayuya started while mimicking Temari. "I hear the voice of a scared little fag who's going to get the fucking shit stomped out of her when I recover. After you're strung-up by your bloated toes on your villages gate, I'm going to skin that overgrown rat summon of yours and use his tattered ass to make a scarf."

The two kunoichi glared at each other for a few more moments before Gaara turned to Naruto and broke the silence. "They must be very good friends to argue like that." he said. Temari resisted the urge to groan while Tayuya finally took notice of her other 'visitor.'

"I know you...Gaara, right?" she asked. Gaara slowly nodded, trying to remember where he had seen the girl before. "You were the guy who was supposed to be our 'secret weapon' during the invasion." the redhead scoffed. "Nice work on that, by the way. Where you fucking drunk or something? They way Orochimaru ranted about you someone might have gotten the idea that you were semi-competent."

Temari went pale and waited for the sand to start squeezing the life out of the girl. She noticed Naruto's eye gain a sharp edge as he too watched Gaara for any signs of aggression. Suddenly, the sandy blonde felt like a very small fish in a very big pond.

To everyone's surprise, Gaara simply blinked. No sand, no death, no all-out war. "The demon inside of me was defeated, actually." the Suna shinobi stated. His sister almost cracked a smile at the duel meaning of his words; the old sadistic Gaara was indeed gone if her little brother could keep his cool around someone like this Oto-nin.

Tayuya really didn't have anything to say to that. She was fishing to get a nice argument going but the stoic Suna-nin was proving to not be up for the challenge. She was about to go back to insulting the infuriating girl that had caused her current situation but an unexpected comment cut her off.

"Your music...it was quite good." Gaara said to the bed-ridden girl. "Did you compose it yourself?"

"Uh, yeah." Tayuya answered. She was a bit surprised; the boy didn't look like the type to start small talk.

Temari looked at her brother like he had grown another head. Not killing people and being a generally 'ok guy' was one thing, going out of his way to compliment someone was another.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the other Jinchuuriki and smiled. If Gaara was getting along with her then it was all the better in his opinion.

"You usually play with a flute, though." Temari pointed out. The redhead snorted and crossed her arms.

"So? It's your damn fault I don't have it. You and your fucking over-grown rat cut it in half!" she retorted. Naruto blinked; Tayuya played the flute? He filed that away in his mind for later...

A knock on the door interrupted whatever more would have been said as a man in a Chuunin uniform marched in. Naruto could have sworn he had seen the Chuunin somewhere before but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" he called out from behind the dividing screen, not knowing if someone was even in the room. Naruto poked his head past Temari and waved at the shinobi. Seeing that the object of his search was here, the Chuunin continued. "Hokage-sama needs you to report to her office immediately."

Naruto looked back at his friends then back to the messenger. "Right now? Can't this wait?" he whined.

The Chuunin sighed; it sucked to be Tsunade's messenger/janitor/secretary. "She told me not to return to the office without you."

"Fine, fine." The blonde turned back to his friends and gave them all a lopsided smile. "Eh, Tsunade-bachan wants me for something so I'll see you all when I get back! Be sure to get some rest, Tayuya-san!" Naruto chirped as he followed the Chuunin out of the room.

"Damn bastard, thinks he's my mother..." Tayuya groaned. A very uncomfortable silence settled over the room as the trio of nins realized how strange their situation was; two Suna-nins were meeting with an Oto-nin in a Leaf-nin hospital.

Tayuya decided to break the tension first in her usual sarcastic fashion. "Heh, this is just fuckin' hilarious. A few weeks ago we were all beating the shit out of each other and now we're expected to be civil."

Temari gave the girl a weary smile; this was so awkward. Luckily, she was saved from the silence by her brother.

"That melody you were composing when we arrived, it's an attack?" Gaara asked. Tayuya raised an eyebrow at that so the Suna-nin explained. "I overheard the leaf Chuunin, Shikamaru, talking with my sister about your fight with him. Sound is an unusual weapon..."

The bed-ridden kunoichi smirked; finally, a topic she liked! "Hell yeah. Sound is the most common thing in the world next to air. Fuck, back when I could use my cursed seal I could use low-level Genjutsu with just a whistle while now I can't do shit." she lamented.

Gaara nodded, the girl had much talent if she could manipulate sound in such a way. Her injuries were a problem but the Jinchuuriki was confident that the redhead would recover. The reason why he thought this, however, still eluded him...

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

Naruto and the Chuunin pushed thought the throngs of people milling through the streets of Konoha. Reconstruction was in full-swing and the sounds of hammers and sawing filled the village. The Kyuubi-container did receive a few glares but not nearly as many since most of the people were too occupied to hate for the time being.

_'Not like some of them won't blame me for even this.' _he thought, bitterly. He supposed he couldn't fault the villagers; having an object to hate was easier than getting over something but did it have to be him?

While he was following the Chuunin, who's name was Izumo, the boy noticed a shop with a large musical note on a sign hanging from it's door.

"Wow, I bet that shop doesn't get much business." Naruto laughed.

When Izumo turned to see what the boy was talking about, he nodded his head. "Yes, I've heard they've had some trouble with vandals as well. Anti-Sound sentiments lead the people to do things like that. It's a shame the old man won't just take down the sign, though. It's a decent music shop."

Naruto was inclined to agree but paused when something the Chuunin said struck a chord with him. "Did you say a music shop?"

"Huh? Yeah, it's one of the few in town." Izumo answered. Since the boy had paused in the street, he was getting a bit impatient.

"Do they sell instruments there, too?" Naruto asked, moving out of the way of a pull cart.

Izumo sighed; why couldn't he have coned Kotetsu into fetching the irksome Genin? "Yes, they sell instruments there. Now, we really need to get to the Hokage Tower...hey, where are you going?" the Chuunin called after Naruto. The boy mearly waved and yelled a 'be right back' before disappearing into the music shop.

The first thing the blonde noticed upon entering was the atmosphere. It was, for lack of a better word, quaint. The walls were littered with posters that advertised musical concerts, most of which were well past the opening date. A large rack of vinyl records lined one wall of the shop while the other side was taken up with various displays. The boy wandered over to the latter and looked over the dusty instruments. Judging from the accumulated dust Naruto judged that the store was in a bit of a selling slump.

"Can I help you, young man?"

The Leaf-nin turned to regard the elderly man that had just hobbled out of the back of the shop. He was hunched over a cane and wobbled slightly whenever he would take a step but still retained an air of dignity that Naruto couldn't help but notice.

"Uh, do you sell flutes?" The old man nodded and motioned to a section further down from where Naruto was standing. As the boy walked towards the indicated area, he could see the various woodwinds mounted in the glass display. They were beautiful, yes, but he wanted to find the absolute best instrument in the shop.

"Do you have any that are _better_? You know, something for a really good player?" he asked.

The owner raised a grew eyebrow and suddenly frowned. "Forgive me but you don't look like the musical type. You're buying this for someone else, right?"

"Heh, you got me." Naruto admitted, slightly offended that the man thought he couldn't play an instrument.

The owner's gaze softened but it was obvious that he was still weary. "Then why can't these wooden flutes be enough for you? They are some of the best-made flutes in Fire Country; more than enough for anyone your age."

"But she's really good!" Naruto defended, suddenly getting defensive. "She even composes her own stuff!" he said as he reverted back to his happy face.

"Really? Entire scores of work or just tunes?" the old man asked.

Naruto scrunched-up his face. "I think entire scores. She had pages of notes written out when I got a peek at what she was writing. She really needs a flute, though! She was having to whistle and stuff to get the sound right."

The old man seemed genuinely surprised at that and smiled. "Heh, she sounds like quiet the little genius." The man chuckled to himself and pulled out a dusty clipboard from under the display case he was standing in front of. "So, you want the best flute for actual performances, right?" He flipped though several of the pages on his clipboard before tapping an entry on one of them. "Well, I think I have just the thing for you, wait right here and I'll be back in a bit."

The man shuffled to the door he had come out of when Naruto first arrived. Once he was gone, Naruto reverted back into his pleasant, real smile. _'I have to bring Tayuya-chan here, it'd cheer her up a bit.' _he decided.

After a few moments, the man returned from the storeroom carrying a polished black box. He set it down in front of the boy and motioned for Naruto to open it. Inside was a polished, long, ivory flute which, to Naruto's surprise, had a fox engraved along the length of it.

The man saw Naruto's surprise and sighed. "This is an excellent Ryuteki flutethat I would have sold years ago if it wasn't for the people here not wanting anything with a kitsune on it. It's made of the finest ivory I've ever come across. It came into my possession after the great 50-year war. A ninja from this village took it from a Cloud Country Daimyo during a mission; or so he said."

It was obvious that the old man was trying to move this particular product but Naruto didn't mind; it was, in his eyes, perfect. He could only think Kami-sama that the old man was too old to recognize who he was. "I actually don't mind the fox." Naruto smiled. "I would rather not have anything with one of those little monsters on it but since the history and craftsmanship is so good...how much is it?"

The old man's face lit up like a festival lantern; it was probably his first sale in weeks. Ten minutes and most of his personal savings later, Naruto walked out of the shop as the proud owner of an instrument. The old man had said that since it was famous, it had a name.

"What's that thing?" Izumi asked as he pointed to the black case under Naruto's arm.

The boy grinned in response. "Usuzumi." was his answer. The confused Chuunin only shrugged to himself as the pair continued on their way towards the looming tower in the distance...

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

"Tsunade-sama, do you really think this will work?" Shizune asked. The latest plan/plot of her beloved mentor was indeed a bit of a stretch in her opinion. "I mean, not doing another group interrogation is good but having Naruto-kun do the interrogation is too much!" she argued.

The Sannin's grin grew to Anko-ish proportions at that. "Who said anything about an interrogation?" she practically cooed.

Shizune, now even more freaked out, rubbed her head to stave-off an oncoming headache. "But you said Naruto-kun would be the one to get the information about Akatsuki. What other way-"

Tsunade's chuckle cut the younger medic-nin off. "Think, Shizune! You saw how Naruto was acting around that little brat; if we just let nature take it's course..." she winked, just to make sure Shizune got the point before continuing. "Then she would eventually open up to him and no one gets hurt."

"That's horrible!" Obviously Shizune wasn't sold on the idea, Tsunade thought as she deflated a bit. Her mood fell further as Shizune began her scolding session. "You can't ask Naruto to betray his friend like that, especially given what he's just been through with Sasuke!"

"It's for his own good, though!" Tsunade argued. "Jiraiya is gone and he won't be tracking Akatsuki for awhile now so we need information. Orochimaru was a member of that organization for years so the girl must know something. We're giving her shelter so telling us information vital to our defense should just be compensation. Not to mention I nullified her Cursed Seal during the operation; it won't bother her again." she said, getting a bit smug.

Shizune still looked unconvinced as she shifted from foot to foot. "I don't know..."

"If things go my way Naruto won't even know! He's not the brightest kid so what he doesn't know won't hurt him. Plus we can let him have a salary so he can live and pay his bills; it's not like we can let him leave the village for regular missions." the Hokage argued. Shizune was about to protest more but the door opened to reveal the object of their conversation along with the Chuunin messenger boy sent to fetch him.

Naruto wasted no time flinging himself into the open chair in front of Tsunade's desk just to be a bother. He made sure to lay the boxed by his feet to make sure it avoided any damage. "Tsunade-bachan! I was talking to Tayuya-san and Gaara, why'd you call me?" he inquired.

Tsunade smiled at the boy and sighed happily. "You can go right back to the hospital once I tell you about the special C-Class solo mission I'm going to give you."

Naruto's brain started to tick behind his idiotic smile. _'A mission? Jiraiya said there would be no more missions until I came around. That either means the pervert isn't here or it's something that will be limited to the village...' _he thought. Of course, he didn't say this out loud. He willed his grin to get larger and pumped his fist. "An C-Class mission! Heh, I knew I was the best! What is it; saving a village from some kinda lighting freak, fighting mermaids, hunting a legendary monkey creature? Whatever it is, I can handle it!"

"Settle down!" Tsunade ordered but there was no bite behind her bark. "Now, your mission is to gather information about...Akatsuki." she leaned over the desk for added effect. "Use any resources you have at your disposal and file a report with my office every two weeks. You'll get paid every time you submit a report so do a good job." the Sannin ordered.

_'So that's it.' _Naruto felt like rolling his eyes at how dumb the woman in front of him thought he was. _'All she wants is for me to use Tayuya-san's friendship to get info so she doesn't have to deal with an interrogation. She's tricky, I'll give Bachan that.' _This brought an unexpected opportunity up, however. If he could play his cards right here...

Breaking out his best fox-grin, Naruto saluted like an idiot. "Yosh! This will be a cinch, Bachan!"

Tsunade let the blatant lack of respect slide since the boy was following her plan. "I know I'm trusting the right person for this, Naruto." she assured him.

"I have a question, though. Can I choose a partner for this mission?" he asked, implementing his plan. He was taking a risk but if he could just pull it off everything would be for the better.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. Since when did the boy like to share the limelight? "Uh, sure. I'll have to approve them first, though."

Naruto narrowed his eyes out of frustration rather than a side-effect of his fake smile; the woman was playing it safe. "Well, I was thinking that Tayuya-san would be good for this since she already knows about those Akatsuki guys."

Shizune shot the older woman a look that clearly said, 'get out of this one.' If Tayuya knew about this then her plan of getting the information though Naruto would be out the window. Thinking fast, the Hokage tried to dodge the issue. "Ah, she's not a Konoha shinobi therefore she can't be assigned a mission. Besides, she's not cleared to know about Akatsuki."

_'Well played, Bachan...' _Naruto mentally complimented. Who knew the old woman had a brain behind her bust? "Oh, right." Naruto said, trying to look like he had never thought of that. Shifting gears, the blonde tried a new tactic. "I guess I wont' have much time to spend with Tayuya-san then. She was so much fun to talk to, though!" he whined.

Tsunade was forced to re-think her position. If Naruto never talked to Tayuya then he could never get her as a friend in which case she'd never open up to him about Orochimaru or Akatsuki. Before she could come up with a solution to this, Naruto snapped his fingers drawing her attention.

"Well, I guess I'd never get to see her much anyway since she's a prisoner and all. I really wanted to have her around town so I could talk to her in-between fact-finding searches for my mission! I won't have time to run all the way to the hospital every day, especially now that the evil landlady is making me sweep the halls in my apartment building ever since that guy moved out of the first floor. This sucks..." the boy groaned, seemingly rambling. He prayed silently that his hint had worked, however, and quietly waited behind his 'pout mask' for any indication.

The sudden look of surprise and joy that swept over Tsunade's face told him all he needed to know. "She's not really a prisoner, Naruto. In fact, you could talk to her all the time if she lived near you!" Tsunade 'suggested.' "I bet I could get her a place in your apartment building, she'll need a place to stay, anyway."

Naruto's grin threatened to split his face. "You really think you could do that, Bachan?"

"Of course! I'm the Hokage, after all." Tsunade snorted. Getting a simple apartment would be no trouble at all; she would just have to make sure it was wheelchair accessible. Of course, since she was the Hokage and all, even if it didn't have wheelchair ramps she could just order them in! '_I am such a genius!' _she congratulated herself, mentally.

Naruto was trying his level best not to smirk. "Wow! When I'm Hokage, I'm gonna be just like you!" he chirped. _'I'm such a genius!' _Naruto congratulated himself. Both blondes fought hard to resist the urge to cackle and instead settled on smirking.

Off to the side Shizune noticed that both speakers had adopted a similar evil glint to their eyes that she had only seen when one of her mentor's crazy schemes worked out from their wandering days. Suddenly she found herself very worried about the next generation...

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

Gaara was a confused individual. The rest of the visit with Tayuya had gone well for the most part. About thirty minutes in, he had found that the redhead used her incredibly foul mouth as a defense mechanism.

_'Insult others before they insult you.' _would be the correct term for it, he thought. Now, with a full Kankuro in tow, they were headed to the village gate so they could return to Suna. The Tanuki-container was a bit annoyed he did not get to speak with Naruto more, but with what Tayuya had told him his friend wouldn't be leaving Konoha any time soon as he was barred from missions. Although she wouldn't say why, it gave Gaara some peace of mind that he could visit again at his own leisure and have the knowledge Uzumaki would be around.

"So, how was the visit?" Kankuro asked as the trio walked down Konoha's main street. With the city on high alert, they couldn't use the rooftops as it would draw ANBU's attention.

Temari clenched her fist and spun around on the Kabuki wannabe. "How was it? While you were stuffing your face Gaara and me had to entertain that Sound bitch I thought I had killed! Do you _know _how awkward that was?"

The puppeteer held up his hands in defense; sometimes his sister reminded him too much of the old Gaara. Speaking of the stoic Suna Jinchuuriki...

"Gaara, where are you going?" Temari turned to see what her brother was yelling about when she spotted the red-haired boy walking over to a shop tucked away on the other side of the street. Temari and Kankuro shrugged before running off after their wayward sibling. They caught up to him just as he was opening the door to the small store.

Temari and Kankuro blinked at the inside of the shop. The painted puppeteer scratched his head as he watched his brother wander around. "A music shop? What the hell are we doing in here?" The sandy blonde only shrugged; her youngest brother was weird like that sometimes.

Soon, Gaara shot his siblings a look that clearly meant for them to follow as he walked up to the old man behind the main display case.

"Ah, so many customers today." the owner said to himself. "How can I help you?"

Gaara looked over the selection of flutes behind the man and shook his head. "I'm looking for...a gift for someone." He heard the barely-restrained gasps from his siblings behind him but paid them no attention. "A flute that can will be used as a weapon."

The old man's eyes widened. "Surprise, surprise." he murmured. "Using a flute as a battle weapon is rare, how would it be used? I hope you wouldn't think to use it as a club or something boorish like that."

The Tanuki-container thought back to what Tayuya had mentioned about her fighting style. "Genjutsu; the sound carries the chakra in the air. Still, it has to be very durable so this one doesn't get damaged in the middle of a battle." he stated.

"Ah...I might have something along those lines." the elderly owner said, stroking his beard. He looked the three teens over and noticed their Hitai-ate. "Suna-nins? You three are from Wind Country?"

"Is that a problem?" Gaara asked, clearly telling the man with his eyes that it shouldn't be.

Chuckling to cover-up his unease, the owner started to walk back to the rear of his store. "Nope! I think I actually have something you'd like."

Once he was gone, Temari nudged Kankuro in the gut. The evil glint in her eye made it known she was going to have a bit of fun. "So, Gaara...getting a present for that redhead, huh?"

Catching on, Kankuro tossed an arm around his brothers shoulder and elbowed him gently, much to Gaara's annoyance. "Oh ho! Got your eye on a girl, huh? You should tell your big brother things like this! I could help you out!"

"The only thing you could help him with is getting a restraining order, Casanova." Temari snickered. "By the way, when is the one Oashisu-chan filled against you going to expire?"

When Temari said that, Gaara subtly moved farther away from Kankuro, pinning his brother with a weary eye.

The puppeteer flushed and he shook a fist at his sister while stomping his foot; the overall effect making him look quite childish. "That was not my fault! How was I supposed to know sending Karasu decked out in red roses would scare her? I thought it would be romantic!"

"Since when is having a puppet that looked like it was bleeding from every orifice of it's body _chase _you though school **romantic**? You traumatized that poor girl!" Temari laughed.

Kankuro mumbled something about playing hard to get but wisely dropped the subject. To Gaara's relief, the owner came back from his storeroom carrying a white box under his arm.

"Here we are." he said as he set the box down. Kankuro and Temari both leaned over Gaara's shoulder to look at the flute within once the man opened the case.

It was a short metal flute; totally utilitarian except for a small Suna symbol near the tip. "This is a special flute that I had made in Wind Country a few years back. It is the highest grade steel that could be made at the time and it can block an attack from a kunai if the user chooses. As for the sound, it's not as smooth as a regular playing flute but it still has a very rich tone."

Gaara picked the instrument up and examined it. He could tell the man was not lying about its manufacture; the Jinchuuriki had an eye for minerals, after all. "I'll take it."

As the Suna-nin walked out of the shop, Kankuro eyed the white box Gaara was carrying and moaned. "There goes our food budget for the rest of the trip. That much for a hunk of metal. Who names a flute 'Semiore,' anyway?"

Temari chose to simply scowl at the back of Gaara's head; she did not like the idea of her brother getting chummy with the Oto bitch. She hadn't really thought Gaara would buy the thing.

"Wait for me at the gate. I'll be back in a few minutes." Gaara said as he disappeared in a swirl of sand. Temari scowled as Kankuro continued to grumble about food; no, she didn't like this development at all..

**_/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/_**

Early morning at one of Orochimaru's lairs was not that different from any other place. Sure, there were more guards and various torturous screams could be heard at any given moment, but for the most part it was, dare we say it, _cozy_. That atmosphere is why no one immediately noticed a single guard missing from his post. Certainly, no one noticed the white-haired figure running through the forward hall.

This intruder was more subtle than most. He, unlike his former students, would rather avoid a fight than walk right into one. Sometimes he wondered if either blonde ever knew the meaning of the word 'infiltration.' Upon further though, he doubted it.

Bypassing one guard with his patented _Touton no Jutsu, _the intruder headed towards the throne room. He knew that no one would be there at the moment but there should be something to give him an indication of where his prey would be next.

Crawling along the ceiling of the hall, he passed several more guards. He was thoroughly disgusted at the way his former-friend was training his shinobi; they were pathetic. Even if he still held some resentment towards Orochimaru for the recent attack, he couldn't help but not be sympathetic to these low-quality Oto-nin.

'_They probably heard the name of a Sannin and came running. Geez, Orochimaru probably only uses them as fodder.' _the intruder thought as he sent two of the Oto-nins into comma with the flick of his wrist. Senbon needles shouldn't hurt them too much but he had to hide the evidence before anyone else came along.

"**_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" _**With a puff of smoke, two exact copies of the man appeared on either side of the two guards. With some quick orders, both of them henged into the appearance of the two Oto-nins and took their place at the door.

Dragging the two unconscious shinobi inside the dark room, the intruder lit a candle by the wall. "Now, let's see what I can find in her-" the white-haired sent a needle flying at the wall behind the ornate throne in the room. Ricocheting off the wall, it barley missed the crouched figure that was hidden in the shadows of the room.

With surprising reflexes, the figure dodged the second needle sent at him and landed a few feet away from the original intruder. The white-haired man tensed, ready to form hand seals. "Who are you?"

"Please, be calm." the shrouded man said in a quiet voice. "I am not here to fight with you. Or, should I say, I can't fight with you...Jiraiya-sama."

The Frog Hermit narrowed his eyes. "Then what do you want?" he asked, still ready to spring. "If you know who I am, then you know what I'm here for. I suggest you tell me what I want to know." he threatened.

"Of course. I think...this could be mutually beneficial to us both." the smirking form of Yakushi Kabuto answered as he stepped into the dim candlelight of the room. "That is, it could be if we play our cards right..."

* * *

And I think I'll end the chapter here. Well, that was a bear to write! Over 7,000 words but I think it's worth it for this particular chapter. The reason I went with a different title(it would have logically been 'Fa') is that this chapter is the keystone to the early part of the storyline. Next chapter will be 'Fa' and it will be a kicker! Hope you liked this one! 

The two flutes introduced in this chapter are actually named after famous flutes in Japan. I thought using the names 'Usuzumi' and 'Semiore' would be good considering how important they are to the story.


	5. Fa

**Important Author Note so please read it.**

Okay, fair warning. This chapter is short and kinda not my best work. I'm releasing it as-is because I want to do a fresh start on the next chapter which will be just as long and well-written as the new Black Sheep chapters. This one is about a year old except for the last few paragraphs which I wrote today. Thanks to all the Dueling Harmony fans that kept this alive and hounded me about updating. Your work has paid off.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, I wouldn't be in college right now!

* * *

**Chapter 5: Fa  
**

* * *

Most of the hospital staff had learned about the odd behavior of the resident demon child of their village. Loud, brash, tricky, and obnoxious. As such, most of them did a double take upon seeing the boy looking very shy and nervous standing outside of the main door to the intensive care unit gripping a small box.

_'Ok, lets look at this logically!' _Naruto ordered himself for what must have been the tenth time in as many minutes._'If she doesn't like it, I can just give it to someone else.'_ Honestly, he didn't know why there was any doubt about it, Tayuya's was all busted up. She would be thankful!

"This is so stupid..." he mumbled to himself as he still didn't move from his spot. A nurse gave him a curious look, but said nothing as she passed by. That kid had been standing around for the last few minutes. Naruto tapped his foot in impatience; he just couldn't stop thinking about Tayuya not liking the present. This was his current problem and the source of his anxiety.

Still fidgeting, Naruto tried to pin down just why he couldn't open the door to the wing of the hospital Tayuya was resting in. Every time he would reach for the door handle his hand would hesitate until he drew it back; it was becoming a problem. _'I have to visit her eventually,' _he reasoned. Still, when trying to reach for the handle, he would hesitate. A million thoughts assaulted his mind but one stuck out like a sore thumb: What if she _really _didn't like the gift?

That single thought made him knit his brow in frustration. Why should he even _care _if the redhead liked the flute? He gave people gifts all the time; he gave Sakura dozens of gifts over the course of the Academy and throughout their team life, he would give Iruka ramen coupons whenever the old man at the ramen stand would pass them out, and he gave Kakashi Mr. Ukki, the plant his sensei keeps in his windowsill.

'_Yeah, I've never wondered once if they would like any of those things so why the hell am I standing here like an idiot now? I should just go in there and get it over with,' _he scolded himself. Still, the blond was still hesitant to follow through on this train of thought.

The gathering of sand in front of Tayuya's room let Naruto know the decision may soon be out of his hands. The boy's eyes arched in confusion as Gaara materialized from thin air. The hell was he doing here?

Pausing for only a moment, Gaara raised a hand to knock on the door leading to the Oto-nin's recovery room. From his vantage point outside the main doors at the end of the hall, Naruto watched as the Suna Jinchuuriki entered a few moments later.

_'That's weird...' _Naruto mused. Still, giving Tayuya a gift with someone else there helped calm his nerves a bit. Now, with a bit more confidence, he went through the main door to the IC wing of the hospital. Not bothering to knock, Naruto simply walked in.

"Yeah, what do you want?" the voice of Tayuya came to the blond boy's ears the moment he entered. He couldn't see Gaara on this side of the curtain so he figured the Suna-nin was already talking with Tayuya.

Naruto was about to call out to his bedridden friend but Gaara's voice cut him off.

"I..." there was a small pause, a waver, in the usually indifferent voice of Gaara that made Naruto hold his tongue. "...have a gift."

To Naruto's good fortune, it seemed neither had noticed the door opening. Against his better judgment, he moved closer to the screen to eavesdrop. If he were caught, he could foreign playing a prank of some sort. Now, if only he could see what Gaara was giving the girl...

Oblivious to his audience lurking outside his field of vision, Gaara held out a small box. Tayuya's first reaction was to raise an eyebrow. Since when did people give her gifts? Still, it piqued her curiosity enough to make her take the offered box. Carefully opening the lid, in case it was a trap of some sort, she has to stifle a gasp at it's contents.

"It...a flute," Tayuya stated, not really believing it. Her hands brushed over the cold metal of what looked to be a very high quality instrument.

Gaara's face remained stoic as he waited for the girl to say more. After a few moments, he eventually got tired of it and spoke up. "Is that not what you use in battle?" he asked.

Tayuya gave him a level stare for a few moments. A lesser man would have wilted like a flower left out in the sun but not Gaara. At least, he didn't show it.

"Well? What do you want?" Tayuya asked after a few moments. Seeing the slightly confused face the boy made, she groaned. "For the flute, idiot. What do you want for it? I don't have any money on me, obviously, and no way in hell you're getting anything..._else_," she deadpanned, deciding to grip the blankets covering herself just a bit tighter.

"...it is a gift, I don't require anything for it," Gaara stated. Based on the girl's reaction, he was starting to wonder if he misunderstood what a gift was. He made a mental note to ask Temari about it later.

The girl just blinked at him, not really believing what was going on. "You're serious..." she said to herself more than her visitor. It was inconceivable to her that someone would actually give something for the fun of it. Of course, the boy before her didn't look particularly happy. "Why the hell are you giving me this, again?"

Gaara slightly frowned; why _did _go to all this trouble? It was a question that had been plaguing his mind ever since the music shop. As it was, he only had one answer that made any sense. "Because I wanted to."

Tayuya's eyebrows knitted even more after getting her answer; what the hell did that tell her? "Whatever, just don't expect me to thank you or anything," she responded. To her surprise, the boy's lips almost pulled up into a small smile. Almost.

"That was something I was prepared for."

Before Tayuya could even ask him what that meant, a loud crash from the other side of the curtain caught her and Gaara's attention. A thick rope of sand darted from the boy's gourd faster than Tayuya could react and an indignant yelp sounded a moment later.

"It's just me! It's just me!" Naruto yelled from the other side of the partition. Gaara's eyes softened a bit but he still had his sand drag the blond to where they could see him.

Naruto glared daggers at the Suna-nin even after his former prison had retreated back inside Gaara's gourd. He made a show of dusting himself off and shook loose particles of sand from his collar before pointing an accusing finger at the other Genin. "What the hell was that? You trying to kill me or something?!" but there was no heat in his words. Oddly, he seemed more nervous than angry.

Gaara's face stayed in the same stoic position, not threatened in the least. "You surprised me," he said as if that explained everything. Tayuya, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as level-headed.

"You fucking bastard! You're lucky I'm still in this bed or I'd rip your spine out for scaring me like that!" she yelled. "What the hell were you doing back there, anyway?!"

"Uh...I ran into the cabinet when I came in, someone must have moved it, heh," Naruto answered, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

Gaara seemed to expect something like this as he didn't say anything. Tayuya, however, narrowed her eyes ever so slowly. That simple action made the hairs on the back of Naruto's neck stand strait up.

_'Shit, she doesn't believe me...' _Naruto warned himself. Thinking quickly, he fumbled for a topic to take the attention off of himself. "Er...yeah! I had a talk with Bachan!"

The look on Tayuya's face was clearly a 'so what?' so he elaborated. At least she wasn't looking into his loud entrance anymore.

"You can get out of the hospital today, I've already signed you out," he smiled. That had an effect, Naruto noted.

"...they're actually letting me _leave_?" Tayuya asked, incredulously.

Naruto's smile turned into a smirk, he loved seeing his friend off-balance like this. "Sure! I just told Bachan how it was going to be and she did it! No problem for Uzumaki Naruto!" he boasted, making sure to watch how he acted in front of Gaara. He shot Tayuya a glance that tried to say as much.

The Oto-nin caught the look and frowned; why Naruto wanted to continue to act like a complete idiot in front of people was something she was probably never going to understand. No matter, she'd beat the real explanation out of him later.

"...whatever. When are we leaving? Where am I going for that matter?" she asked. Naruto's smile returned and started telling his friend about her new apartment.

Off to the side, Gaara watched the pair with a bored expression. Now that he had dropped off his gift he should be getting back to his siblings. "I'm leaving," he bluntly stated. Naruto stopped talking long enough to smile and wave while Tayuya settled on an indifferent hum as her way of saying goodbye.

_'Are these what friends are?' _he asked himself. Taking one last look at the two, Gaara decided that if this is what it was like to have friends, he was very lucky...

Subtly, Naruto watched Gaara walk around the back of the curtain. Only when he heard the door click shut did his larger-than-life smile fade into a more subdued version.

Tayuya immediately glared at him, causing the boy to draw back a bit. "Now, tell me what's going on here," she ordered.

Naruto's eye twitched slightly; just how much should he tell her? "What do you mean?" he asked in a level voice.

"Don't screw with me," Tayuya warned. "How much of what you just spouted was the truth and how much was your bullshit?"

"Well...you are getting out of the hospital today. The Hokage also found you a place to live. She's ordered that you be given 'refugee' status." he explained.

The redhead made a face but said nothing. She understood that it was a miracle to even be alive let alone have some semblance of freedom. "So, we can leave whenever?" she asked, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice. Apparently she had failed as Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"In a hurry? It's not like they're kicking you out," he laughed. Tayuya was not in a joking mood and let the boy know as she took a swipe at his head.

"You think it's fucking funny to be locked up in this place!" she yelled.

Naruto instantly stopped laughing once he heard the way she spoke. It wasn't desperation but it was close. Being locked up in this place was probably more than most people could take, especially if they were used to having free reign.

"I'll go get the doctor and stuff so we can leave now, ok? We'll go out and get some lunch before we go see the apartment if you want," Naruto stated. This calmed the redhead down to the point where she nodded her consent. "Ok then, I'll be right back!" Naruto declared as he ran behind the partition towards the exit.

On his way out, the blond gave a sad look to the cabinet by the door. An ornately carved box could just be seen poking out from behind it, still in the place he had hastily hid it before Gaara's sand grabbed him.

_'Now what am I going to do with the flute? I can't give Tayuya something she's already got...' _Naruto asked himself. He eventually opted to decide it's fate later; right now he had to go get the doctor on duty before Tayuya's cabin fever hit full-force. Still, it would be fun to have a day out with the redhead. After all, he hadn't gotten out himself since the mission.

"Yeah, this will be fun," Naruto whispered to himself as he shut the door to Tayuya's room...

--------

"What the flying fuck?" Tayuya asked a few minutes later as a nurse rolled in a wheelchair.

Naruto sighed, he knew this would happen. "Tayuya-san, this is a wheelchair. It's so you can-"

"I know what the hell it is, dumbass!" she snarled. "I want to know why it's here. Just give me a pair of crutches," she ordered. Both the nurse and the accompanying doctor looked at each other with varying degrees of skepticism; this girl was insane.

"That's not going to work..." Naruto began. A dangerous glare from the girl cut him off, however. In a lower, softer voice he added, "It's only for a little while. Just until you recover."

For once, Tayuya didn't say anything in response. For just a split second, so quickly that Naruto wasn't sure it actually happened, the redhead smiled softly as she looked down at the floor.

Too stunned by the small laps in Tayuya's attitude to react quickly, Naruto didn't manage to catch his friend when she pushed off her hospital bed and landed on the floor.

"Miss!" The nurse rushed to help her but Tayuya's swatted her hands away.

"Leave me the fuck alone!" she screeched. Slowly, only using her hands, Tayuya dragged herself over to the chair. "If I have to use this damn thing then I will sure as hell get into myself."

With shaky arms, the determined girl crawled past the stunned doctor. How she could even move was a mystery to him; how she was dragging herself and her heavy leg casts was simply amazing.

"B-but you could reopen an injury!" the nurse argued. She couldn't believe this was happening.

Tayuya let out a small curse as she struggled with actually getting into the chair using only her hands. It was tricky and she eventually had to use a nearby table to pull herself up but finally she was seated in the metal construct. It had taken almost all of her energy to get there, though.

"If...I can't even pull myself over to this fucking thing without getting hurt...I don't want to live," Tayuya answered with the low, dangerous, voice Naruto had come to understand was as close to determined as Tayuya was ever going to get.

Said Genin felt a conflicting mix of worry and pride. Worry that Tayuya had or was going to hurt herself with that attitude and pride that she would think like that in the first place.

"You're so stubborn," was what the boy settled on saying. "Normal people aren't that stubborn!" he added to lighting the mood a bit.

Tayuya narrowed her eyes a bit. "Stubborn? This from someone who is walking around town after getting the living hell beat out of him just a few days ago?"

"Ah...I'm different?" Naruto asked more than answered. Of course he wouldn't need that long for most of his external injuries to heal; the bastard fox would take care of them.

"There's a difference between being different and being a 'dumb fuck,' dumb fuck."

A normal person would be insulted by such blunt and offensive speech but after a few days of spending time with the redhead, Naruto knew there was no breaking her of her cursing. In fact, he wasn't even sure if Tayuya consciously knew she was doing it in the first place; it was probably ingrained into her psyche. It did bring up an interesting thought, though...

"If I didn't know better I'd say you were worried about me, Tayuya-san," Naruto pointed out.

Tayuya stared at him as if he had gone insane. Finally narrowed her eyes in such a way that Naruto knew to hastily drop the subject.

"I'm not worried about you, I just like to get some kicks out of listening to your stupidity," the girl clarified. Naruto did notice the way she hastily turned her attention to her new means of locomotion, though.

"If you say so," the blond grinned.

Tayuya snorted as she tested the chair she was in. Quickly working out how to maneuver by pushing one wheel one way and the other the opposite, she was soon able to turn herself around to face her companion.

"Of course I damn well say so!" Tayuya declared. For once, however, her voice had no heat in it; only sheer jubilance. It was something that left Naruto stunned on his feet. "Now, lets get the fuck out of here!"

_'She's...acting like a kid,' _the blond boy thought. It was a side of Tayuya he had never seen; hell, it was a side of the redhead he hadn't thought existed. Even her eyes were a bit brighter, he noticed.

Unfortunately, Tayuya noticed as well and narrowed those oh-so-bright eyes. "Is there something on my face, baka?" she asked.

"A-ah! No, no! Nothing like that, I was just thinking about where we should go for lunch!" Naruto tried to lie. _'Stupid, you can't just stare at people like that!'_ he scolded himself.

"Idiot..." Tayuya mumbled as she pushed herself past the scandalized nurse and doctor. Naruto gave them a cheeky smile before following his friend out. He did spare a look back at the cabinet where he had hastily hid his gift; he would have to come get it later.

Outside in the hallway, Naruto arrived in time to witness a glaring match between Tayuya an the ANBU guarding the door. From what he could tell, the guard seemed to be wining since you couldn't tell if he was even indulging in the match behind his mask.

"Er...what are you doing, Tayuya-san?" Naruto asked as he scratched his head.

Ignoring her companion, Tayuya snorted in the ANBU's direction before continuing down the hall. As Naruto started to follow her, the ANBU guard coughed to get his attention.

"You'll have your hands full with that one, kid," he laughed. "She's more of a spitfire than our Hokage."

The blond laughed along with him until Tayuya's shouting made both males cringe. Naruto had obviously underestimated the redhead's desire to leave. A stray thought did strike the boy, however.

"Um...this is going to sound strange, but you know where I live, right?" Naruto asked. When the ANBU member nodded, Naruto let out a breath of relief. "Could you do me a favor? Back inside the room behind the cabinet closest to the door is a wooden box, can you take it back to my place for me? I don't want Tayuya-san to see it."

"...I suppose." the masked man sighed. "You shouldn't be so nervous about giving your girlfriend presents, though."

Before Naruto could start spouting denials, Tayuya's orders for Naruto to "hurry his fag ass up" cut the boy off.

The Genin only wasted enough time to shoot the older ANBU an annoyed pout before hurrying off to catch up with is friend.

"Huh, so young and already whipped," the man chuckled to himself as he entered the hospital room. He quickly located the box and tucked it into his sash. "If he had black hair and liked shogi, I'd swear he was a Nara..."

--------

"So...where do you wanna eat at?" Naruto asked once he finally caught up to Tayuya.

The girl was too busying taking in long breaths to answer the question. It was wonderful, in her opinion, to finally be outside again and out of that damned hospital.

"You shits really are lucky, you know that?" Tayuya suddenly stated.

Naruto tilted his head at the vagueness of the declaration; there were many things Konoha was lucky to have.

Taking the boy's silence as ignorance, the redhead sighed and explained herself. "You get to go outside whenever you want. Hell, your entire village is built in a forest."

Naruto didn't really know how to react to that. It was obvious from Tayuya's tone of voice that it meant a lot to her to be outside. After a moment, something clicked in the boy's head.

"Orochimaru didn't let you get out much, huh?" Naruto guessed as he sat down on the steps Tayuya was sitting by. The redhead scowled at nothing in particular before leaning her head back to stare at the sky.

At first, Naruto assumed she was going to simply ignore that question as she did every time he asked about Orochimaru. It came as a surprise, then, when she actually said something.

"Most of the main buildings of Oto are above ground," Tayuya informed her attentive companion. "Orochimaru stays underground, away from the regular trash. He has these buried bases all over the place incase any of those Akatsuki fags came looking for him."

"And as his guard...you'd have to be down there with him, right?" Naruto finished. He felt a new wave of sympathy come on with this revelation. Even as a child he knew how nice it was to simply walk outside.

Tayuya must have noticed the mood her companion was sporting as she scowled. "I don't need any fucking pity," she snapped, drawing Naruto out of his thoughts. "It was my choice and I don't regret it even after all this," she said with finality. It was obvious that the discussion was over.

Naruto's face shifted into a small frown. The boy had hopped that Tayuya would open up a bit once she was out of the hospital. While he wouldn't go to the extremes Tsunade would, he was still curious about his new friend's life.

Still, he decided it would be better to take things slowly and dropped the subject. On an unvoiced order, Tayuya pushed herself along as the pair moved away from the hospital and towards town. Other than having to maneuver herself around scattered construction supplies, the redhead was getting along surprisingly well with her new method of locomotion. Still, Naruto made sure to stay close incase one of the villagers recognized her as a Oto-nin; he knew all too well about how the villagers treated those who they considered a enemy.

"Hey, idiot," Tayuya called out. "Where can I get some decent food in this sorry excuse for a village?" she asked, taking no mind of the angry glances those that overheard the question were sending her way.

Naruto moved just a bit closer to the girl as several of the villagers looked ready to start throwing things. "Uh, there is a ramen stand a little down the road..."

Tayuya's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Ramen? That's it? I ate better than that in Ot-!"

Before the girl could complete her statement, Naruto slapped his hand over her mouth. He laughed nervously at the crowd and started pushing Tayuya's wheelchair towards the ramen stand as fast as he could safely go; partly to get away from the crowd, mostly to stop Tayuya from trying to rip off his hand with her teeth.

"You slime! What the hell was that!?" the redhead railed once she was free to open her mouth once again.

"That was saving you from a mob!" Naruto whispered back in a harsh voice. "You can't just go around telling everyone that you're from Oto right after we were attacked by them, are you insane?"

Tayuya snorted at the reprimand. "Like I care about trash like them. If any of them gave me any problems about it, I'd just kill them. They should know better than to question shinobi," the redhead stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Naruto blinked a few times in an attempt to wrap his mind around his friend's point of view. "Just kill them? They're the people we're supposed to protect!" he argued.

"Protect? Holy shit, this entire village is cracked. This is a _war machine!_ What part of that don't you understand?" Tayuya questioned. No wonder that Uchiha kid had wanted to leave if this was what he had to put up with.

The blonde boy frowned at what he perceive to be an insult. "Not everything shinobi do is hurt people," he responded. When he saw Tayuya throw him a vicious smirk, Naruto knew he had said something stupid.

"Really? How many people do you think this village kills a _day_? Thirty, forty people? I know you guys take assassination missions. How many mothers, fathers, and sons have you slaughtered?" Tayuya said, driving her point home.

Naruto's expression turned blank as his mind snapped back to the time Team Seven got their first C-Rank mission. The Hokage had explained what the village did based on the mission rankings but for the first time Naruto stopped to think about exactly what the old man had said. Missions would come in varying from simple farm work to assassinations all the time and based on the size of the S-Rank scroll, Konoha killers were in high demand.

Tayuya just sat back and watched the emotions play out on Naruto's face. The truth was never easy to see in her experience; especially when it comes out that the nice life you think you have going for you is really a very tangled web of lies and sugar coating. The dulled mark on the back of her neck was enough to remind her of that. However, when Naruto didn't snap out of his stupor immediately the redhead began to actually worry. "Uh...hey idiot, you alright?" she hesitantly asked, trying not to show any real concern.

As soon as the words left her mouth, Naruto's fake smile was back in place. "Yeah, I'm fine! I'm just hungry, we should get going before all the seats are gone!" he loudly exclaimed. Both shinobi knew that it was an act but something in Naruto's eyes made Tayuya decide not call him on it. With a sigh, she allowed herself to be pushed towards the melancholy that was a ramen stand.

At the stand, old man Teuchi was busy with making another batch of ramen. Business had been slow ever since his number one customer was put into the hospital but he would get a few Genin to come in every few hours. It was enough to keep him occupied even if Naruto hadn't been around.

"Old man!"

Teuchi chuckled to himself as he went to grab a bigger pot. The number one surprising ninja of Konoha always showed you up when you weren't expecting it. "Naruto! It's been a while, hasn't it?" he asked from behind the counter. He blinked when he saw the annoyed redhead wheeling along with him, this was a first for the blond boy. "Who's your friend?"

Naruto smiled in response as he helped a grumbling Tayuya out of her wheelchair and onto one of the stools. Ignoring her various threats of bodily harm, the Genin took the stool right next to the irate teen to make sure she would be alright. "This is Tayuya, she just got out of the hospital and wanted the best food in all of Konoha!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Best food does not include ramen," Tayuya sighed. If she cared about what this man thought of her jab at his profession, she didn't show it as she drummed the tabletop with her fingers.

Naruto mearly shook his finger at his annoyed companion with a smug look. "You haven't had this ramen so you can't say things like that. If this doesn't cheer you up, nothing will!"

Teuchi watched the two go back and forth with a smile. Being a lifelong resident of Konoha, he knew all about the demon fox chained to Naruto's soul. Like most other villagers, he had, for a time, seen the vibrant young man as the nightmare-vulpine-turned-flesh and he had shunned him. However, that had changed when Naruto started to frequent his ramen stand. The first time the little boy had walked in, Teuchi had almost called ANBU out of sheer fright. When Naruto had asked what smelled so good, though, the man forced himself to talk and soon they were both chatting ecstatically about different types of ramen. Ever since that day, the old man had known that the Kyuubi had no influence on the boy whatsoever. Because of that, he worried about how Naruto would take the rest of the village not understanding; Teuchi was also worried about Naruto's social development.

"It's good to see you with a friend, Naruto," the old man stated as he prepared the beef for Naruto's order. "You two really seem to understand each other."

"I understand that this bastard is a pain..." Tayuya grumbled.

The ramen maker looked over at the redhead with shock at her language then over to Naruto to see how he would react. When Naruto only grinned, Teuchi laughed along with him. "You certainly have found a spirited girlfriend, Naruto."

A loud snap drew both men's attention to Tayuya who had just broke off a section of the hardwood tabletop. "Girlfriend?! Like this idiot could even get me on a date!" she scoffed.

"Oh? This isn't a date?" Teuchi slyly asked. Naruto sent him a confused look, but it was ignored for the time being.

Tayuya looked even more offended. "Of course not, this is lunch...if ramen can even pass for a meal, that is."

"So what would you say passes for a date?" the old man asked with a smile. To him, the younger generation was just simply amusing.

The former Oto-nin blinked in surprise, as if she had never thought of it before. She did think for a moment, but quickly became annoyed once again. "Well, I don't know but it sure as hell isn't ramen," she stated with finality. Not like she had ever had the time to go out on a date back in Oto.

The old man finally turned to Naruto and slapped his shoulder. "You hear that? You're going to have to do better next time, Naruto!"

Said Genin blinked along with an equally shocked Tayuya. That old man was a crafty one. "No, no! We're just friends!" Naruto almost shouted. "Sakura-chan is the girl I want to go out with!"

Teuchi nodded in understanding and went back to fixing the ramen while Naruto rested his head on his arms, muttering something about Sakura. Tayuya, however, grinded her teeth.

"Sakura, huh?" Tayuya repeated. "That little weakling I saw in the hospital who thinks she'll magically get strong enough to beat Orochimaru and drag that idiot Uchiha back?" she sneered.

Naruto was shaken out of his daydreams about Sakura at the snide response and felt a growing need to defend his teammate. "Hey, Sakura-chan is strong!" Naruto argued back. "If she says she'll do something, she'll do it no matter what gets in her way."

Tayuya was about to say something about that line of thinking when Teuchi interrupted by setting down their ramen orders. Being used to simply serving anything to Naruto, he had taken the liberty of choosing the young girl's order as well.

The Oto-nin took a tenitive bite out of the bowl of beef ramen that was sitting before her. Although it tasted decent enough, she couldn't give the idiot sitting beside her the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Good thing I'm hungry," Tayuya stated as she took another slurp. To her chagrin, Naruto wasn't even paying attention to her as he was tearing into his meal like a man possessed. "Do you even bother to breath?" she wondered, transfixed on the slightly-sickening sight before her.

To his credit, Naruto did pause eating long enough to give his companion a "what did I do?" look before he resumed eating.

Teuchi laughed at the pair. Their back and forth banter reminded him a bit of the way Naruto acted around his team. Speaking of which...

"Naruto, where's the rest of the group you work with?" the old man asked. Usually, that quiet boy or Sakura would be with him when Iruka wasn't around.

That question actually did make Naruto stop eating and his mood become downcast. "Sakura is still around somewhere, but Sasuke..." the boy found he couldn't finish.

Tayuya could, however, and she took the chance when Naruto didn't say anything. "The Uchiha's off on an extended mission somewhere," she mumbled.

"Oh, I see," the old man murmured. As he went back to cooking more ramen, he didn't notice the grateful looking Naruto gave the redhead.

Tayuya chose to ignore the boy and finished off the last of her meal. "Fine, that wasn't half bad, old guy," she admitted. From her, that was like giving someone two thumbs up.

"That's all you're going to eat?!" Naruto wondered aloud. He was starting on his third bowl.

"You're really going to eat that much?" Tayuya countered. "I could stretch that much food into a weeks rations."

Naruto sputtered as he looked at the bowls next to him. Considering it for a moment, he slammed his hand down on the tabletop and gave Tayuya an angry look. "There's no way! A week?! You're kidding me!"

Tayuya gave a long-suffering sigh. "Just what do they teach you in your academy? No wonder this village sucks so much."

Before an all-out argument could start, Teuchi interrupted. "You two sure argue a lot," he pointed out. "Is there really a point to it?"

"Sure there is," Tayuya instantly answered. "He's an idiot and I like to point it out."

Naruto pouted and slumped down on the bar. "I know what you are but what am I?" he mumbled under his breath.

"See? Things like that, idiot!" Tayuya growled as she pounded the hapless blonde on the head. "Come on, you've gorged enough for one sitting and I want to go see this rat-hole apartment that old geezer set up for me."

Regardless of their usual back-and-forth, Naruto was ready to move should Tayuya have any trouble getting back into her wheelchair. However, the redhead proved to be a fast learner and maneuvered her way into the chair without much of a hassle.

As his impatient friend rolled under the curtain that served as some privacy for the diners inside, Naruto pulled out a few bills and paid for their lunch. As he was leaving, though, old man Teuchi had a few parting words.

"That little lady has seen some hard times," he whispered to his favorite customer. "Take care of her, okay?"

Blinking, Naruto instantly nodded his head. "That's the plan! I'll be back tomorrow, old man!"

Outside the stall, Tayuya had parked herself off to the side. Despite her quick departure, she was bound to the blond idiot for the time being until she found out where her new prison, err, apartment, was.

Without saying a word the two started down the street once again with Naruto in the lead. When they finally reached the building, Tayuya snorted at the place. It was rusty, had pipes running all on it, and looked like something Kabuto had designed. Still, she had to admit that it was better than living underground. At least she could see the sun here.

Naruto pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket and looked around at the doors on the ground floor. Shizune had wrote down the apartment number and told him that she had arranged for it to be unlocked.

When he finally found it, Naruto held the door open for the redhead as she wheeled herself into her new home. It opened up immediately into a large living room with some old furniture.

Tayuya's eyes were instantly drawn to the large bay windows, though. The sun was hitting them just right and the entire apartment was lit. Even though she'd never admit it, the place was much more livable than her old room back in Oto.

"What a shit hole," the girl said out loud. "Is there even a bedroom?"

Naruto scanned the room and noticed an opening through which he could see a small kitchen. It had the basic amenities of life and most everything looked to be within reaching distance. Not too bad.

"I think it's over here," Naruto said once he spotted a door off to the side. Opening it, he confirmed his guess as a modest bedroom was revealed with a bathroom linked to it. In all, it was a perfect one-person apartment.

The redhead rolled herself into the bedroom and nearly squealed like a school girl. There, in the corner near a window, was an actual steal-spring bed. Not a slab of rock with a sheet, not a large tree branch, but a bed.

'_She's weird,' _Naruto through to himself as Tayuya managed to launch herself onto the dusty old mattress with only her arms. The motion had caused her chair to roll out of reach so the blond pushed it back over to her.

"You have no idea how lucky you are," came Tayuya's muffled voice as she simply sank into the soft mattress. "Even between missions I never got to sleep on a bed like this. Not even Orochimaru had it this good." Honestly, the level of extravagance here was disgusting. Not only that, they didn't even know they had it!

Naruto scratched his head in confusion as he looked over the dank bed. "But, it's all musty and dirty..." he trailed off upon seeing the foul look Tayuya had risen from the bed to give him. "Ah, I mean, it's a nice bed! One of the best!"

"What would you know, you're not a shinobi," Tayuya mumbled as she sank back into the covers. She didn't know how much the worlds had cut the boy and he visibly flinched but she was beyond caring. No one understood what it was like for her up until this moment.

Naruto's mood darkened considerably as Tayuya didn't say anything else. Was that how she saw him? As some kid just playing ninja? His eyes narrowed at the kunoichi as he started to walk out of the room. Before he did, though, he paused at the door. "You know, I might not be the best ninja in this village, but at least nothing I've ever done will keep me up at night screaming at my dreams," he said. "I'll be up a floor if you need me." With that, he let himself out and didn't bother stopping the door from slamming.

For a time, Tayuya just ignored that nagging thing she kept locked up in her brain, damn conscience never did her any good, and simply enjoyed having a bed that she could call _hers_. It was new concept, owning something and not having to share for the common effort. Hell, she could probably buy some eyeliner without Sakon stealing it. "Heh, yeah, that fag loved his makeup," Tayuya laughed, half expecting Jirobo to scold her language or Kidomaru to laugh along with her. They didn't, of course, because they were...well, they were dead.

Tayuya drew in a long breath as she reflected on her old team. They were sadistic, crude, rude, idiotic, and just as screwed up as Tayuya herself was but still, they were a team. Her team. _The_Team. Oto elites, the bodyguards of the leader himself, beaten, killed. "So what the fuck am I doing alive?" Tayuya asked herself as she pulled her legs to her chest. For the first time ever, she wished that Sakon would steal her eye shadow or Kidomaru would crack some joke while Jirobo tried to keep himself from laughing. It was just one more thing to lock away and forget about because that's what shinobi had to do. For her, she would be lucky only to see their faces in her nightmares while she had to live life one day at a time without them...

* * *

Short, sucky chapter. I know and I completely understand how you're all feeling. However, since I wanted to pick back up this fiction I wanted to start fresh so I'm releasing this. Next chapter will be with a fresh outlook and new plot devices, no where near as short as this nor as bad. Scout's honor. 


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